


Distorted Reflections

by braccii, exile_wrath, lily_winterwood



Series: A Thousand Shattered Mirrors [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Additional Warnings in Notes, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Federal Agents, Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Black Humor, Body Horror, Corpse Illustrations, Corpses, Dark Character, Dark Comedy, Drug Use, Eye Trauma, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutilation, New York City, Psychological Horror, Slow Build, Slow Burn, To Be Continued, Tribute to Bryan Fuller, Vantablack Humor, Vicchan Lives, bigbangonice2018, dead dove do not eat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braccii/pseuds/braccii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/exile_wrath/pseuds/exile_wrath, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: FBI Supervisory Special Agent and profiler Yuuri Katsuki is called out to New York City with his team to investigate the gruesome murders of several young Asian men. However, as more bodies turn up with increasingly uncanny resemblances to him, Yuuri must confront the possibility that he may be at the heart of the killings — or the killer.





	1. Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Искажённые мысли](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14623404) by [Hikari_Ai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikari_Ai/pseuds/Hikari_Ai)



> “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;  
> And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” — William Shakespeare, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we begin, we would like to warn you that this is not a happy story, and not in that Lemony Snicket way, either. This is much darker than all of our other fics. If you continue past this note, you’re reading this fic at your own risk. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE TAGS AND CHAPTER NOTES. THEY ARE THERE FOR A REASON: WE ARE INCLUDING THAT STUFF IN THIS FIC.
> 
> A special note of apology to fans of Seung-gil Lee: We’re really, really, really sorry about what happens to him in this fic. Please don’t read this fic if you want only good things to happen to Seung-gil. 
> 
> Without further ado, let’s get the corpse party started!

_January 30, 2020  
FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia_

“Can anyone tell me who this is, and what he did?”

A sea of hands go up in the darkened classroom, their faces lit by the stark greenish light of the projector. Professor Yuuri Katsuki looks around at the trainees, and nods.

“Brennan,” he says.

Brennan is twenty-three and still has braces that glint in the eerie light of the projector when he stands, shining silver against the reflected image of the mugshot on the screen. “Peter Lancaster, sir,” he says. “He’s the Marriage Mediator.”

There’s some slightly awkward giggling, as if everyone knows the irony inherent in such a name. Yuuri allows himself a small smile, too, before asking:

“And what did the Marriage Mediator do?” More hands go up. “Katz.”

“He was a family annihilator, sir,” Katz says as she rises to her feet. “He murdered seven families in Connecticut, always when the child was out so that he could lie in wait for them and kill them last.”

“Very good.” Yuuri sighs, looking up at the slide as he changes it to show the pictures of the families. He’s given this lecture at least once a semester to each incoming batch of recruits, and it’s always the moment when he switches between the images of the dead and the alive that gets them the hardest.

The class shifts uncomfortably in their seat as they’re confronted with the crime scene photos. Yuuri can see the minutiae of their faces even below the harsh projector beam — several of them look uncomfortable at the sight of such gruesome, brutal murders. Others, usually the older ones who’ve had some law enforcement experience, look resigned.

He recognises that haunted expression all too well. With a sigh he switches back to the first picture of Lancaster, and says:

“Lancaster was my first major case with the Behavioural Analysis Unit, back in 2010 when I was just out of the Academy. And when you make a career out of profiling serial killers, sometimes you will have to delve deep into their heads to try and understand their logic.”

He looks out at the sea of faces, at the fresh-eyed cadets who have yet to be broken by their caseloads, and for a moment he wishes he could tell them to get out. To return to wherever it was they came from, and save themselves.

But then who else is going to do the job, if not them?

“It’s not logic that the average law-abiding citizen could ever hope to understand, of course. Sometimes they’re just violent with little impulse control. Sometimes they have a motive that seems almost ridiculous. And sometimes — but very rarely — they suffer from a mental illness. You cannot let the media influence you when you attempt to think like these people. There are so many paths to the same end.”

He still remembers the clench in his stomach, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. His skin seems to reek of pine when he jolts out of bed in the middle of the night.

Yuuri takes a deep breath, changes the slide back to the title. “Welcome to Profiling 101, class,” he says. “Here, if you want to catch a monster, you’ll have to think like a monster.”

* * *

“The Lancaster lecture again?”

A new voice jolts Yuuri out of his notes, and he looks up to see Yuri Plisetsky standing in front of his desk, his suit in a disarray and his shoulder-length blond hair tied back in a half-ponytail.

“Yurio,” he chides. The younger agent scowls.

“What? I got dropped off in a hurry. Yuuko gave me a ride.”

“You look like you got dressed in the dark,” Yuuri points out. “Come over here.”

“Thanks, _mom_ ,” intones Yurio drily. “You’ve been giving the Lancaster lecture for… how many years now? Six?”

“Something like that,” agrees Yuuri. “I think I gave it to your class too, at the academy.”

“ _God_ you’re old,” scoffs Yurio, but there’s no edge to his voice. The twenty-six year old’s eyes are strangely warm, instead, as he scuffs his shoe against the carpet by Yuuri’s desk. With a little sigh, Yuuri reaches over to adjust his tie.

“If you’ve got a problem with me giving a lecture about the man who —”

“Who offed my parents and only didn’t succeed in killing me because my friend came home with me, yeah, whatever.” Yurio rolls his eyes. “You got him in the end, didn’t you? That’s the important part.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri pats his shoulder, and gathers up his papers into his briefcase. “Come on, let’s catch up on the way to my office.”

“This is your only class today, right?” asks Yurio. Yuuri nods, already halfway to the door. The younger agent jogs a little to catch up to him. “Have you thought about fieldwork again?”

“What, is Phichit trying to get me back on the team?” asks Yuuri.

“Maybe,” Yurio says, rolling his eyes. “As if there’s room for piggies like you.”

Yuuri laughs. “You’re still a kitten; I doubt any criminal will take you seriously,” he jokes, though it’s a little harder to do now that Yurio is taller and broader than him. He’s very much a different person from the frightened sixteen-year-old Yuuri had met ten years ago, cowering with a gunshot wound in his stomach and the bodies of his parents upstairs.

“I’m not a kitten,” snaps Yurio. “I’m at _least_ a housecat. I like to think I’m a puma, though.”

Yuuri snorts. “Maine coon?” he suggests, as a truce.

Yurio makes a face. “I guess,” he concedes.

They arrive at Yuuri’s office, and Yuuri unlocks it quickly, pushing inside and tossing his briefcase over onto the couch just inside the door. Yurio looks around at the extensive collection of criminology books, at the carefully-tended succulents lined on the windowsill, at the neat little desk with a black leather-bound binder next to a framed picture of a man with short silver hair and a warm smile.

“You keep a picture of Viktor on your _desk_?” he asks, almost incredulously. Yuuri can’t help but laugh, fiddling nervously with the golden band on the fourth finger of his right hand.

“It’s just a little reminder,” he says, a little defensively. Yurio rolls his eyes, and returns to examining the bookshelves.

“I read his book,” he says after a moment. “We all did. He dedicated it to you, you know, being the sentimental _idiot_ he is.”

“I’m sure he did,” says Yuuri, scooping up the binder in his arms and checking his watch. “How are the rest of the team?”

Yurio shrugs. “Chris is a fully-fledged SSA now. He and Phichit want you to come over for dinner sometime. They told me specifically to tell you that, because they’re _also_ sentimental idiots.”

Yuuri laughs. “Maybe this weekend, then,” he suggests, before stepping towards the door. “Come on, I have to lock up.”

A brief awkward silence. Finally, Yurio sighs.

“Today’s the day, isn’t it?” he asks quietly.

Yuuri nods. Yurio shakes his head.

“You know you don’t have to go, right?” The younger agent tugs at Yuuri’s sleeve, his expression plaintive. “Viktor can wait a little longer.”

Yuuri laughs at that, nervously playing with the ring once more as his cheeks heat up. “I know,” he says, “but the sooner we do this, the better.”

Yurio groans at that, his shoulders slowly slumping with each step out of the building and into the parking lot. However, once they reach Yuuri’s black unmarked sedan, Yurio shakes his head and and takes the keys out of Yuuri’s hands.

“I’ll drive you,” he says, already heading around to the driver’s side of the car.

Yuuri obeys quickly, buckling himself up in the passenger seat of his own car. Yurio pulls out of the parking lot with ease, quickly changing the channel to the alt-rock station he likes so much. Yuuri resists the urge to roll his eyes at that, instead looking out the window at the buildings of the FBI Academy slowly fading into the background.

Three years ago, he had been giving a guest lecture for Professor Graham’s criminology class in that very same hall, when Phichit had interrupted with news about a case…

* * *

_July 5, 2017  
FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia_

“What’ve we got, Phichit?” Yuuri asks, after he excuses himself from the lecture hall. Supervisory Special Agent Phichit Chulanont looks around him briefly, before taking Yuuri by the arm and leading him towards the door.

“Captain Cialdini of the NYPD is inviting us onto a case,” he says. “Chris should’ve sent you the details.”

“What, you don’t remember the details yourself?” asks Yuuri, as Phichit hurries him into the car parked at the curb. His teammate laughs and swings over to the driver’s seat, starting the car quickly and pulling them out of the parking lot just a little faster than the speed limit.

“It’s the disappearances,” says Phichit.

Yuuri blinks. “You don’t mean the —”

“Yes, those ones. They’ve found a body.”

“And they’ve linked them?” asks Yuuri, wide-eyed as they head onto the road leading to I-95 North. The trees are in full foliage, glinting emerald in the sweltering summer sunlight. Comparatively, the very few cars they pass along the way out to the interstate seem like drab little bugs.

Phichit hums. Over the radio a loud pop song is blaring, bright and peppy and more than a little grating to Yuuri’s ears. He reaches out to turn it down, only for his hand to be slapped away by his partner, who makes a clicking noise with his tongue.

“Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole, remember?”

“You got that out of a bad CW show,” Yuuri accuses.

“It wasn’t that bad. It just went downhill.” Phichit rolls his eyes. “God, you’d think there’d be more traffic given that it’s the day after the Fourth, right?”

“Let’s not jinx it,” mutters Yuuri, as they turn onto the interstate heading north towards Washington D.C. The fields surrounding the highway are a slightly dry-looking green, almost verging on yellow. Given the amount of humidity in the air recently, there’s probably a storm well on its way.

For himself, however, the upcoming case is a storm all on its own. The New York Police Department has been noticing a spike in disappearances of Asian men between the ages of 19 and 35 from the New York tri-state area in recent years, but this is the first time a body has been found.

“Have they identified him?” he asks after a moment.

“Hmm?” wonders Phichit.

“The body,” says Yuuri. “Has Chris sent us photos or anything? Details?”

“Yeah, it’s probably in your inbox somewhere,” Phichit keeps his gaze fixed to the road ahead. “Nothing terribly gruesome. The body was found in Riverside Park on a bench. Most people who passed the body thought he was just asleep.”

“Identification?”

“Nothing yet, but I’m betting Chris will know by the time we land.”

Yuuri nods, turning to his work phone. Upon refreshing, he opens Christophe’s email about the briefing, and is immediately faced with a picture of himself asleep on a bench.

On closer inspection, however, he notices that the glasses are different and the haircut is messier. The clothes are simple: a set of loose black slacks, a messily-buttoned collared shirt, an ugly blue tie around his head. In the medical examiner’s pictures, there’s hints of a dye job in the roots of his hair, as well as some bruising from fingers around his neck.

“Is someone killing me in effigy?” he asks.

Phichit snorts. “Have you angered someone in New York recently?” he wonders.

Yuuri flicks back to the crime scene photos. “Hm, no. This isn’t anger. They left the John Doe lying peacefully on a bench like he’s asleep. This isn’t a crime of passion; there’s no overkill associated with most symbolic killings. This unsub loves whoever they’re trying to send this message to. Whoever they’re killing for.”

Phichit hums at that. “What if you’re that person?” he asks.

Yuuri snorts. “Yeah, right,” he says. “I’m just a —”

“Dime-a-dozen FBI agent, I know,” says Phichit, the eyeroll obvious in his voice even as he keeps his eyes trained on the road. “Never mind the fact that you’re like the best profiler we have at the moment, and a damn good unit chief to boot. They oughta pin a medal on your chest someday for that.”

Yuuri cringes. “Please, no.” He clicks out of the briefing, and exhales. “Whatever. I’m pretty sure the victim’s resemblance is just a coincidence.”

* * *

_July 5, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

He finds himself eating his words a couple hours later, as soon as they walk into the 24th precinct station in northern Manhattan and are confronted with a whiteboard full of similar-looking faces.

“Detective Seung-gil Lee,” says the detective in charge of the investigation, shaking Yuuri’s hand coolly. His expression is impassive, professional. Next to him, Detective Leo de la Iglesia cheerily waves. “Captain Cialdini is glad that you’re here; he passes on his thanks to Phichit.”

“Anything for my old partners,” Phichit replies with a wink. Detective Lee’s cheeks tint bright pink and he clears his throat, turning back to the board.

“Here’s some of the more recent missing persons cases that were found to be similar to the victim,” he says, gesturing to the pictures. “We just got positive ID on the body, too — he’s Cao Bin, disappeared about six months ago from a rented room in Flushing. His sister reported him missing when he failed to return home from work.”

“Where did he work?” asks Phichit.

“The World Ice Arena in Flushing,” says Detective Lee. “He taught classes there; he’s a retired ice dancer.”

“Has someone broken the news to his sister yet?” asks Yuuri. Detective Lee shakes his head, so Yuuri nods at Phichit, who beams cheerily and extends a hand to Detective Lee.

“Come on, let’s go talk to her,” he suggests. Detective Lee gingerly shakes his hand, the flush on his cheek deepening, before following him out the door. Yuuri turns to Dr Christophe Giacometti, their forensics analyst, and raises an eyebrow. Christophe shrugs.

“They worked together when Seung-gil was in vice,” says Detective de la Iglesia suddenly. “I could take you two to the body, then, if those two are going to talk to the sister?”

“Lead the way,” replies Christophe, and Yuuri falls into step next to him as they head out of the precinct office back to where their SUV is parked.

“I thought Phichit had been in counterterrorism,” he whispers.

Christophe shrugs again. “I guess it makes sense for there to be some overlap between vice and counterterrorism,” he replies as he opens the door for Yuuri.

They meet the medical examiner on duty at Tisch Hospital’s morgue within the hour. “Sorry to have made you come out all this way,” says Dr Emil Nekola as he rolls out the body for them. “I don’t have too much to add onto from my previous reports, besides a name and some preliminary toxicology reports.”

“Time of death?” asks Yuuri.

“Oh, I’d say about July first.” Dr Nekola unzips the body bag again to let them take a look; Yuuri has to wrinkle his nose at the thick smell of embalming fluids permeating the air. “CSU’s running the other stuff found in the park — you’ll want to go to them for their findings, but all I’ve got for you is that the manner of death is still strangulation, though my preliminary tox screenings did pick up some ketamine.”

“Ketamine?” echoes Yuuri.

“Oh yeah,” agrees Dr Nekola. “He probably had even more in his bloodstream just before he died. Dude was probably just a _little_ higher than a kite when he shuffled off this mortal coil.”

“No fingerprints found with the strangulation bruises?” asks Christophe.

“No, that’d be _too_ easy,” agrees Dr Nekola, chuckling.

“Signs of sexual assault?” asks Detective de la Iglesia.

“No,” replies Dr Nekola.

Yuuri hums, stepping away from the body. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t _some_ sort of sexual gratification coming out of this,” he points out.

“Sexual… you think someone’s getting off on turning people into other things?” asks Detective de la Iglesia.

“Not things. People. Someone specific, probably. These kinds of killers are using their victims as surrogates for someone else.”

“Usually the sexual element comes out in overkill,” Detective de la Iglesia points out. “Mr Bin was strangled and then posed like he was sleeping. Nothing in that suggests overkill or sexual frustration against a third party.”

Yuuri shrugs. “That’s because the killer doesn’t harbour anger,” he replies. “At least, not towards the person this is supposed to symbolise.”

“But murder usually involves some degree of anger,” says Detective de la Iglesia.

“Yes,” agrees Yuuri. “But not this one. This one was done out of love and remorse.”

“For the victim themselves, or for the person they symbolise?” wonders Detective de la Iglesia.

Yuuri looks over at Christophe, who is perusing the medical examiner’s report with his tongue poking out and his brows knitted together. He looks down at the body again, at the peaceful set of the man’s jaw as he slumbers in the icy embrace of death.

What sort of person would _lovingly_ guide their fellow human beings into such a state?

“When it comes to surrogate victims, it’s _never_ about them,” he says quietly. “It’s always about the fantasy that the unsub is spinning in their own head.”

Loving or not, this one is just as absorbed in their fantasy as any other. And Yuuri hopes to catch them before it’s too late.

* * *

It’s already looking fairly late by the time they return to the station, and not just in the dip of the sun over the New York City skyline towards the west, a brief burning blaze of pinks and golds before the purple twilight settles in around the city. The summer is inordinately warm and humid in this city, heated up considerably by the excess fumes permeating the streets.

“The New York field office says they’re setting up a press conference for us,” says Christophe as they pile out of the car.

“It’s a bit soon,” Yuuri points out. “There’s only one body.”

“Only one _posed_ body,” Detective de la Iglesia points out. “There’s been a couple other cold cases all over the city that may fit our victimology.”

Yuuri’s already looking forward to collapsing on his hotel bed, but he only sighs and pushes open the door into the station instead.

Phichit and Detective Lee are gathered in front of the whiteboard when they enter, poring over case files. “We’re trying to narrow down the files that Missing Persons gave us,” says Detective Lee as they come over to the table replete with pictures and file boxes. “Approximately how far back do you think this goes?”

“It might be easier for me to cross-check through the database,” says Christophe, already pulling out his laptop from his bag. “But we’ll have to start with the time frame. When did the disappearances begin?”

“I’d say about six years ago,” says a new voice. Phichit looks up from the files, his eyes visibly lighting up at the sight of a middle-aged man with long brown hair in a ponytail and eyebrows reminiscent of a mad wizard.

“CiaoCiao! You’re here!” Phichit exclaims. Captain Celestino Cialdini of the 24th precinct hugs him back, ruffling his hair as he pulls away.

“Let me tell you, Phichit, you are a sight for sore eyes. How is life in D.C. treating you?”

“Very well,” says Phichit. “This is my friend and colleague Yuuri Katsuki, and our other colleague, Christophe Giacometti!”

“I feel so loved,” intones Christophe drily. Phichit claps him on the back, beaming at Captain Cialdini as he does so. Christophe rolls his eyes, before typing at the laptop.

“Okay, so we’re looking at six years ago,” he says, “and we’re cross-checking Missing Persons reports alongside cold case files?”

“Yes, with the victim profile as well,” says Yuuri. “So they’re all Asian men somewhere between the ages 19 and 35 —”

“Who look like Yuuri,” adds Phichit.

“We don’t know if the unsub’s focusing on me specifically,” Yuuri points out. “They could be focusing on someone who _looks_ like me.”

Phichit rolls his eyes. “We’re allowed to be concerned as a precaution, right?” he asks.

“Or we could just be paranoid. No one knows who I am.”

Phichit snorts. “He’s always like this,” he says, for the benefit of the NYPD officers in the room. “This man is the best profiler in the FBI, he’s put countless killers behind bars, and he thinks no one’s going to have it out for him because _they don’t know who he is_.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to protest this, but Christophe clears his throat before he can get a word in. “How tall are you, Yuuri?” he asks.

Yuuri grits his teeth. “Five foot eight,” he says.

“Okay so anywhere between five foot six and five foot ten,” replies Christophe. “Black hair, brown eyes. Glasses?”

“The pair found on the body were not prescription,” says Detective Lee.

“So chances are the unsub put them there. The glasses are part of the person they’re trying to recreate,” Yuuri points out. “Lots of Asian guys wear glasses.”

“Yes, and it just so happens that you’re among them. Trust my gut on this, Yuuri,” Phichit pleads.

“I think your gut’s more reliable when it comes to determining which restaurants are mafia front businesses, but okay,” says Yuuri, throwing up his hands. “The unsub _might_ be modelling their victims after me. Should probably put ‘reasonably fit’ into that category, then. Or ‘has generalised anxiety disorder’.”

“Chances are, the unsub wouldn’t know _that_ about you,” Phichit points out. “When’s the last time you’ve been in New York City for extended periods of time?”

“We come up here for other cases,” Yuuri points out. “Remember the serial killer we caught in Brooklyn a couple years back?”

“Yes, but what about six years ago?” asks Phichit.

Yuuri sighs. “Lancaster case was around then in Connecticut. Chris and I stopped off in New York for a night on the way back down to D.C.”

“I was a civilian consultant at the time,” adds Christophe, leaning back with a flourish from his computer. “Okay, I’ve narrowed down the Missing Persons cases in New York to about thirty-five or so, and then cross-checked them with some of the cold cases that fit the victimology as well. That gives us twenty-five cases already that could potentially belong to this unsub.”

“Twenty-five?” demands Phichit. “No way. You gotta get narrower. Add in a low-risk lifestyle; Yuuri’s a homebody.”

“I’m _in the room_ ,” Yuuri points out, mildly offended. Phichit blows him a kiss. “Also, did Cao Bin lead a low-risk lifestyle?”

“Yeah, he mostly just went to work and then went home. Nothing particularly remarkable,” says Phichit. “But we’ll keep tabs on the sister, just in case this turns out to be not linked to the disappearances.”

“Something tells me that it is, though,” says Yuuri, nodding over to where the detectives and Captain Cialdini are conversing in low, hushed tones. “NYPD’s been stumbling around the edges of this case for a while. Random bodies of Asian men being unearthed in dumpsters and parks and the Hudson, on and off in different precincts and even the suburbs of New York for the past couple of years?”

“But this is the first time the body’s been posed.” Phichit nods, putting his hands on his hips as he looks up at the whiteboard again. “There’s been a switch in the MO.”

“It’s like the unsub _wants_ to get our attention,” agrees Yuuri. “It’s like a voice calling from far away. A cry for recognition.”

* * *

Under the flashes of the camera bulbs and the dull roar of the reporters, Yuuri has never felt more alone.

Phichit and Christophe’s voices sound as if they’re coming from the end of a long tunnel, their words registering only dimly, their movements slow and blurry like molasses. Something about how they don’t want to make any connections just yet, based on the one body that they have, and how the Bureau is honoured to be invited onto this case by the New York Police Department, and how they hope the joint efforts of the two will lead to the apprehension of the killer before more lives are claimed.

Thoughts are turned to the bereaved, eyes are turned forward to the future. Yuuri knows at some point he should have made his own comments as the unit chief, but he doesn’t quite recall what he said out there on the lectern before the mass of blinking lights and bodies. Maybe it’s the usual spiel about keeping vigilance, about reporting anything suspicious to the Bureau. In any case, it’s over almost as soon as it begins, and when Yuuri comes back to the present, it’s to Phichit Chulanont waving a hand in front of his face.

“Yuuri?” asks Phichit. “Are you alright? You’ve got that thousand-yard stare thing going on again.”

Yuuri blinks. “Sorry,” he says. “It’s been a tiring day.”

“I can imagine,” says Christophe from next to him, already arranging his folders. “Let’s go get a drink.”

Yuuri personally would rather raid the mini fridge in the hotel they’re booked at for the night, but he knows Phichit and Christophe would both disapprove, for their own separate reasons. So he smiles, nods, and suggests they pick the place. Turns out, Phichit already has one in mind.

“It’s called The Spread Eagle,” says Phichit minutes later, as their car pulls up in front of a little bar with a sign in the shape of an eagle. The Spread Eagle looks fairly busy for the evening, and filled with the smell of smoke and sweat as they enter. Yuuri notices a couple off-duty police officers, gathered around several pints of beer along a wooden table.

“Phichit!” the bartender exclaims as he fills a pint glass with beer. “Back to your old stomping grounds? We just saw you on the news!”

“Johnny!” Phichit grins, stepping up to the bar and gesturing for Christophe and Yuuri to sit with them. “Yeah, we just got out of a press conference about our current case. Tiring stuff for my boss Yuuri here. Maybe he could use a drink?”

“You can _always_ use a drink, believe me,” declares Johnny as he hands them menus. “First round’s on the house, as a welcome back present.”

“Amazing,” says Phichit. “I _knew_ there was a reason I liked you.”

Christophe raises an eyebrow. “So it’s true, you _do_ get free booze whenever you ask for it,” he marvels.

Phichit’s cheeks flush at that. “No idea where you got that from,” he declares. Yuuri laughs.

“Chris, I’ve been rooming with the guy for two years already. He could get people to give him pot if he so much as said the name ‘Mary Jane’.”

“It was pretty awkward that one time we were talking to those kids about Spiderman,” agrees Phichit, rolling his eyes and thumbing through the menu. “Come on, Yuuri, let’s get you something nice and strong to help you with your jetlag.”

“You just want me knocked out tonight so you can invite Detective Lee over later,” accuses Yuuri, which gets Phichit laughing into his menu almost as if he’s already drunk.

“Oh no, Seung-gil says he’s already got plans.” Phichit shrugs.

Christophe snorts. “Plans? You two were eye-fucking at the station every time you could. Most people would _kill_ for such an amicable relationship with their ex.”

“I highly doubt that’s a good enough motive,” Yuuri mutters, as he peruses the list of wines.

“I thought motive was arbitrary here in the realm of the serial killer,” says Phichit, humming cheerily. “Should I try the ‘Wood Ye Drink’? Or the ‘Salty Salchow’?”

Eventually they settle on their drinks, and Johnny the bartender brings it to them with a wink at Phichit. Yuuri looks away, his gaze flitting across all the pub’s patrons, at the framed articles and records on the walls. A small band is playing in the back corner, the lead singer crooning into a microphone as the dim atmosphere of the song hovers, wraith-like, over the low babble of conversation.

He feels lethargic, like the molasses of the press conference has settled into his bones. Phichit and Christophe are discussing something; Yuuri catches whispers of names and establishments he doesn’t recognise. Maybe from New York? He did go out with Phichit sometimes in D.C., but he doesn’t recognise any of the names that Phichit and Christophe are exchanging.

“— and then there was the New York Fashion Week party we crashed on our one night in New York before we came back to D.C.,” says Christophe suddenly, clapping a hand to Yuuri’s shoulder and jerking him back into the moment. “Do you remember where that was, Yuuri?”

Yuuri scowls. “I thought I told you I don’t remember anything from that night,” he says.

Christophe sighs. “I don’t really, either. But my ex — well, my boyfriend at the time — had invites.” He beams at Phichit. “You really should’ve been there!”

“Well, too bad I was still in undergrad at the time,” replies Phichit, rolling his eyes. “But hey, isn’t it nearing New York Fashion Week again? I thought Men’s Spring happens in July.”

“Something like that,” agrees Christophe. “But Masumi’s gone back to Tokyo, I think, so I can’t exactly ask him for more invites to a party here.”

“Shame,” says Phichit, looking sidelong at Yuuri. “Must’ve been so much fun.”

“I wouldn’t know,” replies Yuuri. “I don’t remember.”

“I had pictures at some point,” says Christophe, frowning. “They’re somewhere on my computer, I think. Yuuri had a little too much vodka and danced with everyone — I had to pry him off his new model friends to get him back to the hotel.”

“Next time, don’t let me drink that much,” says Yuuri as he takes his wineglass.

Christophe laughs, clinking his own martini against his. “To a successful case,” he suggests.

“Chon gâew,” agrees Phichit, and they all drink.

* * *

_July 6, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

One of the best things about being Yuuri Katsuki is the fact that he doesn’t really get hangovers.

One of the worst things (besides the constant low-key blanket of worry that everyone secretly thinks he’s not cut out to be an FBI agent) is his body’s intense dislike of waking up and doing productive things at any time before ten AM.

“We need to get to the station,” Phichit’s cheery voice resounds. Yuuri groans from where he’s sleeping, feeling the light buzz of static in his brain fading the moment he presses his cheek back into the hotel pillows. There’s the sound of water running in the bathroom — must be Christophe trying to clear his head with a shower.

They’ve shared enough motel and hotel rooms on their cases to work out a morning rhythm. Yuuri is not a functional human being before his coffee; Phichit just needs some hot sauce on his eggs to get going; Christophe needs a shower and probably a wank as well. But eventually they’re all up and running, Yuuri grimacing at the disgusting sludge congealed in the bottom of the hotel’s paper cup as he shrugs on his suit jacket.

It does the job, though, and they’re out to the car parked in the garage across the street within the hour, and heading back up to the 24th Precinct. As they stride into the station, however, they are confronted by Captain Cialdini’s serious expression, and Detective de la Iglesia already halfway out the door.

“What’s going on?” asks Phichit. “Where’s Detective Lee?”

“Not sure, probably running late,” says Detective de la Iglesia. “But we’ve got a new body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Lewis Carroll, _Alice in Wonderland_


	2. A Mating Display

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings at the end of this chapter.

_July 6, 2017  
SoHo, New York City_

“Body” turns out to be a rather generous term for the remains currently on display in a back alley in SoHo. The stench of it makes Yuuri gag a little as he steps towards the shop suit mannequin propped up against a dumpster and the grotesque head and arms of the next victim impaled on its neckband and armplates.

“Shop owner found him while trying to take out some trash,” says Detective de la Iglesia. “The beat cop working this precinct called us as soon as they saw it. It seems to fit the victim profile.”

“Asian man, glasses, black hair.” Yuuri takes a step back. “Got an ID on him yet?”

“Running it,” replies Detective de la Iglesia. “It might take us a while. In the meantime, we’ll be on the lookout for the rest of the body.”

“Something tells me it might take you a long while to find it,” says Yuuri, walking around the remains as if it was a fascinating sculpture at the Met. “It’s a rather sudden change in MO, isn’t it? The first body was found lying peacefully, the second one disposed of so violently…”

“Shows that the unsub’s flexible,” Phichit points out. “Nothing’s too gruesome for them.”

“Medical training,” adds Christophe, who has been examining the neck. “This isn’t a half-baked hack with a handsaw, that’s for sure — the body parts were dismembered cleanly and efficiently.”

“We can’t see the arms, so how can you be sure?” wonders Phichit.

“We could, if we took off the suit,” replies Christophe, as two crime scene technicians step forward to do just that.

But Phichit shakes his head. “Wait. Yuuri.” He holds up a hand, frowning. “What were you wearing yesterday?” he asks.

Yuuri frowns. “My suit?” he asks. Phichit gestures to the suit jacket and the starched, bloodstained shirt and tie holding the entire gruesome ensemble together, and Yuuri shrugs, pulling out his phone.

“I’m guessing the press conference is out on the Internet somewhere,” he says, opening up YouTube to look for a video. Moments later, he pulls one up and shows it to Phichit, who nods, and holds up the screen with the image of Yuuri in his suit from yesterday next to the remains on the mannequin.

“It’s an uncanny similarity, don’t you think?” he asks.

Yuuri has to admit, it really is. The tie has the same pattern; the suit is roughly the same shade. And now Phichit is smirking like he’s the cat that got the canary.

“So what was that about the unsub not modelling their victims off of you?” he asks.

“This means they’re following the investigation in the media,” replies Yuuri.

“They’ve even got the glasses right this time. Blue frames.” Phichit whistles. “You got a fan, Yuuri.”

Yuuri groans. “I’d rather not,” he mutters. “What ever happened to sending nice messages on social media instead?”

“Yuuri, _everyone_ in the FBI knows I run your social media profiles,” says Phichit.

“Half of the FBI are now trained to spot distinctive linguistic profiles, no thanks to Chris,” retorts Yuuri. “But that’s not the point. The point is, this unsub knows we’re on the case. This is their way of saying ‘don’t you ever take your eyes off me’. They want to be the centre of our universe just as much as we are theirs.”

“Or maybe the unsub’s just happy that Yuuri-senpai’s finally noticed them,” jokes Christophe. Yuuri raises an eyebrow, and Christophe immediately busies himself with trying to peel the suit off the remains with the other crime techs.

“Could they be involved in fashion?” asks Detective de la Iglesia suddenly. “Your average New Yorker has no need for a mannequin like this.”

“This is SoHo; there’s quite a couple clothes shops around,” Phichit points out. “Could’ve found a mannequin here without any problems.”

“But no one would throw out one that’s _this nice_ ,” Christophe points out, gesturing to the golden accents on the neckband and armplates. “This kind of suit form would probably price at about a thousand bucks a pop; you’re not going to just stumble across one at a dumpster.” He pauses, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Also, the clothes.”

“What about them?” asks Phichit.

“The suit found on this guy, as well as the clothes found on Cao Bin, are all high-end clothing. Quality materials. This unsub has enough money to dress their corpses in haute couture.”

“And haute couture that somehow happens to echo Yuuri’s terrible clothing taste, too,” jokes Phichit. Yuuri rolls his eyes at that, to which Phichit responds with a wink before going over to huddle with Christophe, who is currently turning over the shirt and jacket in pursuit of a label.

Yuuri frowns. “Did the unsub tear them out?” he asks, gesturing to the spot where the labels should be.

“Or they’re original pieces,” says Christophe. “You know, the cut of this jacket looks familiar.”

“You know who designed it?” asks Phichit, eyes wide. Christophe seems to preen for a moment, before nodding.

“Yeah, it looks like an Atelier Popovich design,” he replies. “He’s supposed to be presenting at New York Men’s Fashion Week in a couple days; he’s got a studio on Fashion Avenue, I think.”

Yuuri hums, satisfied. “Well, then I suppose we ought to pay Mr Popovich a visit,” he says, and turns to head back to the car.

* * *

_July 6, 2017  
Skylight Clarkson Square, New York City_

“I don’t know why you’re here, but the FBI is wasting their time,” Popovich mumbles around needles clenched between his teeth as he holds his hands up. He takes a moment to pick the needles out and set them in the pincushion on the table instead.

They’re backstage at the venue for Popovich’s show for New York Men’s Fashion Week, where the designer himself is doing last-minute alterations on a piece. Originally, they had gone to his studio, but a helpful assistant had redirected them. Christophe, Yuuri, and Phichit stick out like sore thumbs in the pandemonium of models, cosmeticians, and photographers all centered around Popovich and his particularities for how the show must happen. Occasionally, someone does a double-take at them, doubtless because of the press conference, but they never stop moving.

Knowing that Popovich was going to say that (as a lot of people like to shoo federal agents off their turf as soon as possible), Yuuri smiles to placate him. “Please, Mr. Popovich, we’re aware that you’re busy right now, but if you don’t answer our questions now, we can always take you down to the station and make it more official.” He cuts his gaze through the room, at the hustle and bustle of the models and other staff. “Can’t afford to have that on your hands, I’m sure.”

Popovich presses his lips together, but gets up anyway. He wordlessly leads them out of the crowd to a calm corridor, looking around nervously. “Make it quick, I really need to get back to that model,” he snaps.

Yuuri nods. “Okay,” he replies, sending a sidelong glance at Christophe and Phichit, who are looking around the corridor, their own pens and notepads at the ready. “We’re here to ask some questions in connection with a recent body found in SoHo. Do you happen to know a Richard Chen from Los Angeles, California?”

“Richard Chen’s a pretty common name,” Popovich bites out.

“He’d look like this,” Christophe offers, showing a photograph of the victim from when he had been alive. Popovich’s brows furrow, but he shakes his head.

“Can’t say I remember,” he says. “Besides, I don’t hire Asian models that often.”

“He was reported missing in Los Angeles around May 15, 2012. Did you happen to have been in California then?”

Popovich blinks. “You think _I_ had something to do with his disappearance?” he demands.

“No, _no_.” Yuuri smiles placatingly. “One of your original blazers was found on his remains this morning, and we wanted to know if you know anyone who could have given it to him.”

Popovich’s jaw drops. He blinks rapidly and looks around the corridor again, disbelief rapidly spreading over his features. “Excuse me, but — none of my materials can stand blood! How — who would _desecrate_ my work like that!?” he squawks, sounding like an extremely flustered duck, “Blood?! On _my_ velvet blazers!? That’s —”

Yuuri half-turns to Christophe, raising an eyebrow. “His most common material for his blazers is velvet,” Christophe offers.

“How do you know that?” Phichit wonders.

Christophe proffers his phone, which is open to Popovich’s online boutique, showing his signature collection.

Popovich is still flailing. “I — I’m sorry, but I really can’t imagine anyone who would do such a thing,” he fumes, clearly more scandalized over the mistreatment of his clothes than someone being dead. “I’ve been stretched like spandex for the past _month_ with preparations for Fashion Week! You can ask anyone — I haven’t had time to get my own coffee, let alone murder someone!” He then devolves into a segue about possibly murdering his assistant that keeps messing up his coffee orders in fear of his caffeine intake, but Yuuri’s no longer paying attention.

He takes the rambling in stride. “So, where were you on the evenings of July 2nd and 5th?”

Popovich looks at Yuuri like he’s sizing up a possible pincushion. “In my studio, _duh._ You can ask any of my assistants or models.”

Yuuri quirks an eyebrow. “Mind if we do that?” he asks sweetly.

“Go ahead, as long as none of them are busy and it doesn’t interfere with my schedule.” He pauses. “Are we done yet?” He’s already edging away.

Yuuri nods, sending a look towards Phichit and Christophe, who immediately begin to move back to the pandemonium of the main corridor. However, when he turns back, Popovich is gone, and Yuuri can hear the sounds of clapping and snapping echoing back down to him:

“Chop chop! Back to work, no time for gossip! _You_ , get back on that podium!”

Yuuri looks around, noting the directions in which Christophe and Phichit have gone, and heads towards a different direction from them both, where he can see a few models lingering around a set of curtains. They seem to be in less of a rush than the rest, which strikes him as odd, but upon closer inspection, he realizes that it’s because they’re idling for their turn to go on set.

Then he realizes they’re all skimpily clad.

“Um.” Yuuri clears his throat, keeping his eyes tightly fixed on the curtain. “Isn’t it a bit cold?”

The model to his right scoffs, looking up from his phone. “You don’t belong here,” he says immediately, crossing his arms and looking Yuuri up and down. “…Those shoes are off-brand and at least seven seasons out of style.”

“They’re practical.” Yuuri reaches up, adjusts his glasses. “Anyway, I’m SSA Katsuki with FBI, and I —”

He scoffs again. “Yeah, I _know_. Are you gonna question our cameraman now? ‘Cause we kinda need him.”

Yuuri resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Actually, I’d like to question you first.” He tilts his head and shoots a congenial grin, which Phichit has described before as ‘shit-eating’. “Where were you on the nights of the 2nd and the 5th?”

The model pretends to examine his nails. “I was modelling for Valentino,” he says without hesitation. “Ugh, I _wish._ No, I was modelling for J. Crew. You can confirm with my agency.”

Yuuri tilts his head. There’s a moment of tense silence, where Yuuri can feel the eyes of the other idling models fixate on him.  “I, uh, doubt photoshoots would take all evening,” he points out.

The model _looks_ at him, and exaggeratedly rolls his eyes. “Ugh. You’re one of those types that think this is _easy_ , aren’t you?” he snaps, “Well, newsflash, _Agent Katsuki_ , I bet I put in as many hours as you police types. You might have to, like, run down criminals, but _I_ have to hold the same pose in front of cameras for like, fifteen minutes straight, just so that they can get the perfect angle. And god _forbid_ if the lighting is off!”

Yuuri gets the feeling that this particular fellow is just as stressed as Popovich is.

“You get to run around in quote-unquote _practical_ shoes. But guess what!” At that moment, Yuuri feels a finger jab at his chest, and something knock against his ankles. He looks down and somehow manages to not flinch at the strappy three-inch torture devices attached to the model’s feet. “I have to walk in these things multiple times down the runway for rehearsals! My _blisters have blisters_!”

Yuuri opens his mouth, hoping to come up with something to smooth over the (obviously faux) feathers he’s clearly ruffled, but only a slightly strangled wheeze comes out of his throat. He’s saved, however, from further indignities by the loud rattling noise of the curtain being flung open to reveal someone who Yuuri could only describe as ‘inhumanly beautiful’.

Soft silver hair falls perfectly across a pale face with a strong jawline. Piercing, ice-blue eyes sparkle against the cold corridor of the studio. The light from the set beyond the curtain illuminates him from behind, casting him into a halo of gold. Fitting, considering the rapidly-escalating situation that Yuuri had inadvertently embroiled himself in.

“What’s this commotion?” Yuuri’s saviour asks, before turning towards the other model. “Anton, it’s your turn.”

Even his voice sounds like a choir of angels. The other model mutters something that sounds like ‘ugh, _finally_ ’, stashing his phone away into god-knows-where and strutting past Yuuri’s saviour onto the set. If he elbows Yuuri on the way, Yuuri doesn’t blame him.

Yuuri’s saviour steps out into the hallway, letting the curtains fall behind him. As he turns to make sure the curtains are closed, Yuuri finds himself distracted by the shining golden wings embracing the man’s ass.

“Are you alright?” the literal angel asks, twisting slightly and shooting a gentle smile over his shoulder at Yuuri, whose eyes quickly snap up above the man’s collarbone. “I’m so sorry about Anton. Everyone’s wound tight this time of the year.”

“Oh, that’s alright.” Yuuri smiles, adjusting his glasses. “I can’t imagine our presence is helping.”

The man turns around fully at that, his gaze openly raking up and down Yuuri’s body. Despite being the most clothed person in the hallway, Yuuri somehow feels just as naked as everyone else under those eyes.

“Well,” remarks the angel. “ _I’m_ not complaining.”

Yuuri pushes his glasses up, feeling his cheeks burn. “Would you complain if I asked you a couple questions?” he blurts.

“Depends.” The angel smirks. “Are you asking for my number?”

This could not be happening. Yuuri suddenly has a flashback to his first meeting with Christophe, and getting a friendly hand on his ass for his troubles. It had definitely been an interesting start to his first major case as a fully-fledged FBI Agent. He laughs, just as he had back then.

“That would be, uh, unprofessional,” he points out.

“Could I ask for your card, then?” Did he just _wink_ at Yuuri? Maybe it was a trick of the light.

“I — I don’t know. Can I ask you a few questions?” The fact that he’s comprehensible right now is a fucking miracle. Yuuri casts a glance towards the other models in the hallway, who have all suddenly seemed to have found better things to pay attention to, as if the angel was too bright to look at. He knows the feeling.

The angel sighs, leaning into his hand thoughtfully. “I suppose,” he concedes. “Let’s find somewhere more _private_.” Somehow, Yuuri gets the impression that the angel’s definition of private involves a locked door.

“Do you have anywhere in mind?” he asks.

A slow, languid grin spreads across the angel’s face. “Oh, _plenty_ ,” he purrs. “The majority of them closets, of course, but… since you want to be _professional_ …”

Somehow he makes ‘professional’ sound absolutely obscene. Yuuri’s throat goes dry; determinedly, he takes out his phone and pulls up his notes app instead.

“Yeah,” he says. “Professional. _Please_.”

“Alright, then.” The angel begins sashaying down the corridor, tossing another casual glance over his shoulder. “My name’s Viktor Nikiforov, by the way.”

Yuuri nods, tearing his gaze from the vivid, golden wings on Viktor’s ass, and determinedly follows those well-sculpted shoulder-blades down the corridor and several turns to a covert alcove. Once there, he’s greeted with the sight of Viktor leaning elegantly against the nondescript wall, giving Yuuri a perfect view of his abdominals. Yuuri’s pretty sure he’s only seen comparable musculature before in the Met.

“So?” Viktor prompts, raising an eyebrow.

Yuuri clears his throat. “Do you work closely with Mr Popovich?” he asks.

Viktor nods. “I have worked with him often, yes,” he states, every word dripping with absolute confidence. Compared to Anton, this man is infinitely more desirable, and he knows it. “Georgi’s always favoured Russian models, and I’ve been working with him almost… since the beginning.”

“So you’ve been with him during the preparations for this Fashion Week?” asks Yuuri.

Viktor laughs, quiet, bell-like. “No, I’m in high demand. I’m not with him every day.”

“How about the nights of the 2nd and the 5th, then?” Yuuri’s stylus pauses briefly against his phone as he takes in Viktor’s expression.

Viktor taps his lips with one slender finger. “I was not,” he replies. “On the 2nd I was with Dior, and on the 5th I was with Giorgio.”

“Georgi?” echoes Yuuri.

“No, Giorgio _Armani_ ,” clarifies Viktor.

Yuuri blinks. “You do more than lingerie?” he asks.

Viktor’s grin grows wider, almost heart-shaped. “Of course!” he exclaims. “Though —” He winks, jutting a hip out into the dangerously small space between them — “would you prefer I stick to these?”

Yuuri tries to adjusts his glasses. He only succeeds on the second attempt. “I’m. Uh. No comment.”

Viktor chuckles, and Yuuri prays silently for Phichit and Christophe to come rescue him before he makes a fool of himself. Clearing his throat again, he looks down at the notes he’d taken on his phone, and smiles.

“Okay, um. So, do the names Richard Chen or Cao Bin mean anything to you?”

Viktor presses his lips together and shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid,” he laments. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

“Oh no,” Yuuri says hastily. “You’ve been _quite_ helpful. Thank you for giving me a bit of your time; I understand you guys must be so busy right now.”

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Viktor waves a hand dismissively. “Though, I am curious — why are you questioning the people _here_ , of all places?”

Yuuri laughs. “I can’t give you anything _too_ specific,” he begins, trying to quell the flip in his stomach when Viktor’s eyes widen at that, “but one of Mr Popovich’s pieces was found at one of the crime scenes.”

Viktor looks taken aback. “ _Really_ ,” he remarks. “Georgi must have _flipped_.”

Yuuri smiles, but doesn’t respond to that. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr Nikiforov,” he replies.

“Please, _Viktor_.” Viktor beams. “Mr Nikiforov makes me sound as uptight as Georgi,”

“Okay, Viktor.” Yuuri casts a glance back to the corridor, but when he takes a step out of the alcove, Viktor suddenly perks, his eyes lighting up with glee.

“Oh, by the way, if you have any questions about fashion, you could ask me?” he offers. “I’ve been in the industry since I was a kid, after all.”

Yuuri nods, fumbling in his jacket pocket until he produces a business card. “Well, if you have any more information, please don’t hesitate to call this number,” he replies, extremely relieved to fall back on a scripted statement. And if his fingers linger against Viktor’s when the other man plucks the card from his hand, that’s nobody’s business.

Viktor examines the card with a delicately furrowed brow. “Oh! Is this _your_ number, Agent Katsuki?”

Yuuri blames the fact that the other man is in lingerie for why he’s feeling extremely hot under his collar. “Um, no, that’s the tipline,” he says.

“Oh,” repeats Viktor, a distinct lilt of disappointment in his voice. “Well, what if I gave you mine?”

Yuuri laughs, the most amused he’s felt since the start of the case. “Sorry, I wish. Well, thank you for your time.” And with that, he’s speed-walking away, desperate to put some space between them before he changes his mind. He hears Viktor call out for him, but he doesn’t turn, especially since Phichit and Christophe are at the end of the corridor waiting for him.

“ _So_ ,” Phichit raises an eyebrow when Yuuri reaches them, his gaze fixed on something over Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri suspects that he’s just gotten an eyeful of a particular lingerie model. “Did anyone give you a _hand_ back there?”

Yuuri resists the urge to stomp on his foot, settling instead for a glare. Phichit, of course, has long been inured to those glares during the course of their partnership, and grins it off.

Christophe also follows the trajectory of Phichit’s gaze, and chuckles. “Oh yeah, Georgi Popovich does have a _very_ fetching lingerie line. Unfortunately out of my budget, but I’m appreciative, all the same.”

Yuuri turns his glare on him. To his satisfaction, Christophe does recoil a little. “You could’ve told me that _earlier_ ,” he intones drily, “before I got scolded by a man in less than a Speedo.”

Christophe sighs. “We should’ve traded,” he declares. “I nearly got my eye taken out by a makeup brush wielded by a twitchy cosmetician.”

Phichit snorts at that. “Try nearly getting strangled by measuring tape. Everyone here is stressed to kill. And dressed, too.”

Yuuri groans, but before he can say anything else, Christophe nods towards the exit. “Let’s compare our notes with the NYPD. Maybe the lab’s come up with something.”

“Or Detective Lee’s shown up,” agrees Phichit, and leads the way out of the studio.

As they walk out, Yuuri chances a look upwards, and pauses. On the billboard across the street, splayed across a couch in a blood-red Dior trenchcoat, lies Viktor Nikiforov with his pearly whites flashing brightly in the afternoon sun. The eyes seem to bore into Yuuri’s with the same intensity as if they were on its flesh-and-blood counterpart, causing him to shiver despite it being quite warm out.

 _Oh, that’s why I thought he looked familiar_ , Yuuri thinks, and follows Phichit and Christophe back to their car.

* * *

_July 7, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

“It’s not like Detective Lee to miss work,” Captain Cialdini remarks with no small amount of concern the next day. “I hope he’s checked into a hospital.”

“A hospital?” Yuuri registers the word with bleary concern, taking a long drink of his morning coffee.

Captain Cialdini smiles fondly, and a little sadly. “He’s the sort that would only miss work if he was seriously ill,” he explains.

Phichit nods into his croissant. “That’s Seung-gil for ya,” he says, finishing it off before binning the wrap. “So, has anything new come in?”

“Bad news,” Christophe says, waltzing in looking as fresh as a daisy even though he’d left the hotel at 4:30 AM. “I’ve been cross-referencing missing persons cases with the victim profile at the RTCC, and unfortunately it seems like New York’s not the only place with a couple missing Asian men.”

“Where else?” asks Yuuri, already dreading the answer.

“Las Vegas, for one,” says Christophe, consulting the sticky note on his hand. “Hoboken, Orlando, San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, Portland, Seattle, San Diego, and Detroit, amongst others. Hopefully most of these are red herrings just because of the demographics in these cities.”

“But better safe than sorry, right?” asks Yuuri, smiling bracingly. He pats Phichit’s shoulder, as his colleague is clearly frowning at Seung-gil’s still-empty desk. “I’m sure Seung-gil’s family has some idea where he might be; if it makes you feel better, we could ask them?”

Phichit’s laugh sounds extremely sheepish and stilted. “Maybe it’s better I sat out on this bit,” he says, scratching nervously at his nape. “Last time I saw his mother, she was already choosing baby names.”

“What, for you and…?” Yuuri trails off, pointing at the desk.

Phichit nods, before stepping over to Christophe. “How about I double-check the records you pulled?” he suggests. “See if I can catch some of the red herrings.”

Detective de la Iglesia pokes his head out of the cubicle. “Please,” he says, his expression clearly one of someone who’d already forgotten the meaning of sleep. “Another pair of eyes on this would be appreciated.”

Yuuri shrugs. “Go ahead then,” he says, and Phichit thankfully shuffles over to take Leo’s spot at the cubicle. The detective stretches gratefully as soon as he clears the desk, striding past Yuuri for the coffee pot.

Half an hour later, Yuuri finds himself with Christophe and Detective de la Iglesia in front of Seung-gil’s apartment in Queens, knocking on the door. “Detective Lee?” he calls through the wood, trying to peer through the peephole though he knows it’s useless.

Behind him, Detective de la Iglesia is pacing up and down the carpeted hallway, dialing his colleague’s number over and over again.

 _Hello. You’ve reached Lee Seung-gil. Leave a message_.

“Maybe we should’ve gotten Phichit up here after all,” laments Detective de la Iglesia, hanging up for the umpteenth time. “He always had a talent for getting Seung-gil out of his house. We called him the ‘Seung-gil whisperer’ when he was stationed here.”

Christophe laughs, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he wonders.

Yuuri knocks again, this time with his head closer to the door. He’s greeted by the sound of scratching and whining, and turns back to Detective de la Iglesia. “Does Detective Lee have a dog?” he asks.

“Yeah, he’s got a husky,” says Detective de la Iglesia, frowning slightly. “Is she throwing a fit in there?”

“Well, we haven’t heard from Detective Lee in more than 24 hours,” Yuuri points out, taking a step back from the door. “Maybe she’s hungry.”

Leo taps his chin thoughtfully. “Seung-gil told me once he asks his neighbour to feed his dog whenever he has to work overtime. Chances are, they’ve got a key to his apartment, or know where he keeps it.”

Sure enough, when they knock at the neighbour’s door, they are greeted by the suspicious eye of a wizened old lady stooped over a cane. “Ma’am?” asks Detective de la Iglesia, flashing his badge. “I’m Detective Leo de la Iglesia with the NYPD.”

She squints harder at him. Detective de la Iglesia quickly changes tack.

“I’m Seung-gil’s coworker. He hasn’t shown up to work for more than 24 hours, and we were wondering if you knew if he was alright.”

The door closes, and there’s the shifting noise of a chain sliding open. She opens it fully moments later, sizing Detective de la Iglesia up and down with a scrutinising glare.

“Who are those people?” she asks, jutting her chin towards Yuuri and Christophe.

“They’re colleagues,” replies Detective de la Iglesia.

She nods, slowly, and then slowly walks away from the door. Moments later she returns, a small bronze key in her hand.

“Seung-gil-ah didn’t ask me to feed Hoppang when he went out on his date two nights ago,” she says, pressing the key into Detective de la Iglesia’s hand. “Has he really not been back since then?”

“A date, ma’am?” Christophe asks.

She nods, looking concerned. “I thought maybe he got back when I was asleep, though my hearing is still very good at this age. Hoppang has been whining since last night; I couldn’t get any sleep.”

“Do you know where he went on his date? Or who he was meeting?”

“He said it was a blind date at the Silent Lamb,” she replies. “Fancy new restaurant in Manhattan; he dressed very nice for it.”

Yuuri and Christophe look at each other, and then at Detective de la Iglesia. “Do you know that place?” Yuuri asks, and the other man shrugs.

“Never heard of it,” he replies. “Then again, I only look out for new Mexican restaurants, because the existing ones are all _terrible_.”

“Really?” asks Christophe, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve seen some good reviews in the _New York Times_ for this one —”

“ _No_ ,” Detective de la Iglesia states, and somehow the period in that is more final than the denial.

* * *

_July 7, 2017  
The Silent Lamb, New York City_

“What can I get for you gentlemen today?” a server asks, pen poised on their notepad.

Detective de la Iglesia flashes his badge again. “How about the manager?” he asks, clearly still a little steamed from his rant in the car.

The drive to the Silent Lamb had been filled entirely with the detective’s impassioned rant about the quality of New York’s Mexican food. Yuuri had tuned out most of it in favour of lavishing affection on the poor husky they’d rescued from Seung-gil’s apartment. Christophe, however, who had sat shotgun and thus gotten the brunt of it, still looks a little scarred as he surveys the minimalist décor of the restaurant.

The server pauses, their smile freezing on their face. “Uh. I, uh. Just a moment.” And they beat a hasty retreat into the back.

Moments later, they return with a tall man impeccably dressed in a burgundy suit. “Dr Hannibal Lecter,” he says by way of greeting, extending a hand for them to shake. “I believe you have some questions for me?”

“Interesting name,” Yuuri remarks, as Christophe mutters ‘paisley and plaid? _really_?’ in a stage whisper next to him.

“My mother is a professor of Carthaginian history at Columbia University,” replies Dr Lecter with a wry smile.

“Right,” says Yuuri, smiling. “Okay, well. We’re here to enquire about the whereabouts of an NYPD detective who was supposed to have been at your restaurant a couple nights ago. Do you still have your security footage from the night of the 5th?”

Dr Lecter rubs thoughtfully at his upper lip. “I believe so,” he replies. “Do you have a description of the detective?”

“Korean, black hair, brown eyes,” says Detective de la Iglesia, flipping through his phone before pulling out a selfie of himself with Detective Lee. “Probably dressed very well considering your, uh, upscale nature.”

Dr Lecter examines the picture with a furrowed brow. “Hm. I was there that night, yes,” he says, “and I think I remember seeing him. He was with someone.”

“Tall,” cuts in the server. “Light hair, glasses. A bit of stubble, too, I think?”

“Yeah,” agrees Dr Lecter, and then points to Christophe. “Kinda looked like _him_ , now that I think about it.”

Detective de la Iglesia raises an eyebrow at Christophe, who suddenly puts up two hands and steps back, shaking his head. “No way,” he says. “That wasn’t me.”

“Really?” asks Detective de la Iglesia. “Where were you then, two nights ago?”

“I was getting drunk with Yuuri and Phichit!” exclaims Christophe, spluttering indignantly. He turns to Yuuri. “You were there! You were definitely sober enough to remember me being with you guys the entire night, right?”

“Yeah,” says Yuuri. “I can vouch for him; he was at the Spread Eagle with me all night.”

Detective de la Iglesia rolls his shoulders back, sagging a bit. “Sorry,” he mutters, “You know, just gotta check everything.”

Christophe still looks incredibly affronted at the implication anyway.

Dr Lecter considers him, brows furrows and lips pursed. “Well, come to think of it, your shoulders are a little broader than his. Your mystery man just looked very similar, that’s all.”

“I see,” says Yuuri. “So, can we see your security footage, Dr Lecter?”

Dr Lecter spreads his hands. “I don’t see why not. Follow me, gentlemen.”

* * *

_July 7, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

Phichit stares hard at the footage, tapping at the laptop. “Huh, he really _does_ look like Chris,” he remarks, looking up consideringly.

Christophe tosses up his hands. “Seriously!? He looks _nothing_ like me!” he exclaims.

Yuuri pats him on the shoulder consolingly. “So, have you checked the CCTV yet?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m on it,” Phichit says. “By the way, I think I managed to filter out some of the red herrings.”

Detective de la Iglesia sighs in heartfelt relief. “You’re amazing, Phi,” he says, clapping Phichit on the shoulder. “I can take it from here — I just needed the fresh air.”

Phichit chuckles, unplugging the laptop with the restaurant’s security footage on it. “Don’t forget to blink,” he suggests, as he relinquishes the seat to Detective de la Iglesia. “Come on, guys, let’s track Chris’s evil twin.”

“Do you think maybe he’s our unsub?” asks Yuuri, as they head down to the tech lab with the laptop. “It seems kinda coincidental, though.”

Christophe laughs. “And we all know not to dismiss coincidences in this line of work,” he points out, before opening the door into the tech lab. The technician in there monitoring the traffic footage looks up at their entrance.

“Do I finally get to change the channel?” she intones drily as they step in.

“Can you check the CCTV footage from the corner of 5th and East 86th from the night of the 5th, between the hours of 9 PM and midnight?” asks Christophe. The technician nods, fingers flying over the keys as she pulls up the relevant videos on one of the screens in the room.

“Ok,” says Phichit, leaning in. “Seung-gil was at the restaurant at 9, and the date arrives around 10. They’re in the restaurant for about an hour and a half, and then —”

“Left in a cab together,” Christophe points out suddenly, gesturing to a yellow cab pulling up to the restaurant corner. “Can we get a different angle, see if we can make out who it is?”

“Well, apparently he looked like you, so I don’t know how helpful that would be,” Phichit says. Christophe hums, as the technician pulls up a couple other shots of the street.

“Yeah, we don’t ever seem to get a clear shot of him,” he says. “Let’s track the cab, then.”

“Already way ahead of you,” the technician replies as she pulls up more traffic cam footage, tracing the trajectory of the cab through the busy New York streets. “They seem to be heading downtown until the Holland Tunnel, and then they take that across the Hudson into Jersey.”

“Can you find them on the other side, too?” asks Yuuri.

“Yeah, thank god for networks, am I right?” She inputs a couple more access codes until she’s pulling up more footage of the cab — seemingly lost in a sea of similar vehicles — emerging from the Holland Tunnel on the Jersey side. “They go up to Hoboken and… get off at a parking garage.”

“Let’s contact the driver,” suggests Phichit. “Do you have a clear shot of the license plate?”

“Yeah, from back at the restaurant,” says the technician, pulling up the footage of the cab heading down the road and zooming in on the taxi. Phichit takes down the number, before dialling a number from the phone on the technician’s desk.

“Hello, I’m SSA Phichit Chulanont with the FBI, and I have a couple questions for one of your employees…”

One long phone conversation later, it turns out that the driver of the cab that night had thought the couple was just like any other, talking mostly to one another. One of them — a ‘tall blond man with glasses dressed up real nice’ — had apologised for making him go all the way out to Hoboken so he could pick up his car, because he was ‘from Jersey’ and didn’t want to ‘deal with finding parking in Manhattan’. He had then gotten distracted by some dog videos, and had discussed the merits of dog-owning with his date until they reached their destination.

Pulling up CCTV footage of the carpark in Hoboken also proves fruitless, because after the cab enters and leaves, neither Seung-gil nor his mysterious date show up on any other cameras in the building, and several cars leave the carpark after the cab.

“Maybe this is a dead end,” says Yuuri, leaning back from the desk with a sigh. “Maybe we’re all just worried over nothing because Seung-gil’s indisposed somewhere in Jersey.”

Phichit snorts, shakes his head. “That doesn’t sound like him,” he points out. “He’s not the kind to put out on the first date.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” interrupts Detective de la Iglesia from behind them. Yuuri turns, raising an eyebrow. “A lot has changed in five years, you know.”

Phichit flushes at that, immediately turning back to examine the footage again. Detective de la Iglesia sighs, stepping into the room with his own laptop, two files pulled up on it.

“I found something,” he says, his expression grave. “One of the missing persons cases from Las Vegas had a face that looked familiar to me, because of a tattoo over the guy’s right eye. Turns out, Tian-Xing Lu was found a couple years ago stuffed in a dumpster behind a fish market in Chinatown. Caused a bit of panic for the businesses in the area, I remember.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” says Phichit, not turning around at that. “What’s he doing so far away from Vegas?”

“Well, given the reports of Mr Lu’s, uh, _profession_ , he could’ve followed a client to New York.”

“A client that ends up making him sleep with the fishes?” asks Christophe. “Poor man.”

“But it doesn’t quite fit the profile,” Yuuri points out. “Sex workers are high-risk victims.”

“Well, it was a couple years ago,” replies Christophe. “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere, even serial killers.”

“So you think it’s our unsub?” asks Detective de la Iglesia.

Yuuri shrugs. “What does the case on Mr Lu say about his manner of death?” he asks.

“Asphyxiation,” reports Detective de la Iglesia, “but toxicology noticed some trace amounts of Rohypnol in his bloodstream too. Guy was roofied to hell before he died.”

“Like Cao Bin,” Yuuri remarks. “Any signs of sexual assault? I mean. Besides the roofies.”

“No,” says Detective de la Iglesia. “So, should we count this as one of ours?”

“Maybe,” replies Yuuri. “That gets us maybe three bodies —”

“Or more, if we find some more matches between cold cases and missing persons,” Phichit points out.

“Three bodies or more, plus a potential kidnapping across state lines.” Yuuri sighs, and adjusts his glasses. “Seems like we’re going to have to stick around and get to the bottom of this.”

* * *

And so, they move in.

Within a couple days, and through a considerable amount of charm and wheedling, Phichit gets both his old desk at the FBI field office and his apartment in Chinatown back. It’s a tight squeeze, piling three full-grown men into an apartment made for two, but they make it work. It helps that the pull-out sofa bed in the living room isn’t _completely_ rotten, but they still draw lots to see who gets it. Yuuri gets the short straw, but after seeing his misery after a single night, the other two take pity on him and agree to rotate the suffering.

Since there are no new bodies dropped after the sixth, they have no choice except to follow up on other leads by interviewing the friends and family of the known victims. It’s slow going, as the lack of new bodies means less chance to refine the victimology. Yuuri hates these lulls, because it’s just waiting for the unsub to make another move, like a demented game of chess with corpses instead of pawns.

But that’s not the worst of it. With each additional day of failing to show up to work, Detective Lee’s absence becomes more and more pronounced. Christophe’s suggestion that perhaps he’d decided to take a sudden vacation after his mysterious hookup is met with incredulous snorts and eyerolls around the office. “He’d only miss work if he was ill enough to have to be hospitalized,” Phichit says, and Leo nods empathetically.

They ask around the other precincts, comb the CCTV for his appearance. But nothing comes up, and Detective Lee’s friends and family join the multitude of inquiries about other missing Asian men in the area. Hoppang is placed under Leo de la Iglesia’s care, in the meantime, though she sometimes spends her afternoons at the precinct curled under Detective Lee’s desk, sleeping with his jacket.

And then, on the 17th, they get a call.

Captain Cialdini is the one to pick up, his default friendly expression smoothing into something harder the longer he listens. “That was a detective from the 100th precinct,” he says after he hangs up, shaking his head. “Some beachgoers found a mutilated body wearing a fancy suit at Jacob Riis Park.”

“How do they know it’s ours?” Yuuri asks, frowning. There’s a subsequent notification noise from his phone, and he checks it to find an email with photos attached.

“They said the body is missing its feet, with a pair of leather loafers jammed onto the stumps,” says Celestino. “The suit’s got a designer label on it, too, something Skaya —”

“Baranovskaya?” prompts Christophe, as the first of the attached photos finishes loading. Yuuri looks down at it, his heart dropping to somewhere near his practical work shoes as he takes in the face of the victim.

It’s like looking at a distorted reflection. The features aren’t natural, clearly contoured with makeup, but they’re undeniably his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: References to prostitution, references to kidnapping, references to nonconsensual drug use
> 
> Wrath: Yeah, Hannibal Lecter showed up for 5 minutes, got his fashion choices questioned, and walked the fuck out.


	3. Head Over Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings at the end of this chapter.

_July 17, 2017  
Jacob Riis Park, New York City_

“It’s like an afterthought,” Yuuri says, straightening up from the body and looking out at the expansive rolling waves of the harbour. The cry of gulls echo overhead, and the crime scene tape flaps in the brisk sea breeze.

The body is placed awkwardly, almost as if the man had been knocked down and just didn’t get up again. He’s lying on his side, face turned blankly to the left with blood staining the hem of his pants and the stumps where his feet had once been.

“ME thinks the feet were removed antemortem,” says Phichit, turning one of the shoes over and over in his gloved hands. “Preliminary cause of death is exsanguination.”

“From his feet getting cut off?” asks Christophe, peering at the shoe from over Phichit’s shoulder. He whistles. “Valentino. Dang, I can’t even get a pair of those puppies for my _own_ feet, and this unsub is just dropping bodies off in haute couture like it’s nothing.”

Yuuri hums. “Well, we know the unsub has money, at least. Or has regular access to designer clothing.” He turns to Leo. “Any news on who the body is?”

“We haven’t ID’d him yet,” cuts in the other detective from the 100th Precinct. “Couldn’t find anything on the body besides the designer label for the suit jacket.”

“Baranovskaya,” agrees Yuuri, adjusting his glasses. He sighs, removing his own gloves. Despite it being July, the sun doesn’t seem to bear any warmth. “Do they have a studio here, too?”

“Yeah,” says Christophe. “Also on Fashion Ave, last I checked.”

“Right,” says Yuuri, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from the body. Somehow the heavy contouring on the face is even more unsettling in person, and the blue-rimmed glasses gently folded on the ground next to the corpse’s left hand seems like an uncanny calling card. “Bag the body, get it autopsied. Check the clothes and glasses for any traces of DNA. And…” he sighs, tearing his gaze from his dead mirror image with a shudder, “Get that makeup off him so we can see if he’s any of the missing persons.”

“You got it,” says Leo, taking an evidence bag from one of the other police officers and bagging the glasses. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

Phichit sighs, also rising to his feet and removing his gloves. “So, Agent Dime-a-dozen, sure you don’t have a secret admirer?”

Yuuri snorts. “Not so sure about the admiration anymore. The other bodies were posed or assembled with care. This one looks like the unsub just shoved it out of their car and drove off. Like I said, it’s like an afterthought.”

Phichit claps him on the back. “Then you _clearly_ don’t know how makeup works,” he says. Yuuri suddenly has a flashback to Anton the underwear model, and suppresses a shudder.

“I think I’ll remain ignorant a little longer,” he declares, noticing the appraising glances being sent towards him by the other law enforcement at the scene. “Well, let’s make a return trip to Fashion Avenue.”

“Maybe they’ll have less panties in a twist, since Fashion Week is over,” Phichit speculates, as the three of them begin heading back to their car.

Christophe chuckles. “ _Men’s_ Fashion Week is over,” he points out. “ _Women’s_ Fashion Week is the real hell.”

* * *

_July 17, 2017  
Fashion Avenue, New York City_

Compared to the chaos that was Popovich’s domain at the backstage of a Fashion Week, Lilia Baranovskaya’s studio punctuates the idea of haute couture with elegant wood floors, _Swan Lake_ playing in the air, and mannequins outfitted in delicate materials that look like they’d fall apart if touched. Just stepping onto the top floor of that Fashion Avenue building makes Yuuri immediately feel like he’s intruding on the hallowed halls of a ballet theatre. He half-expects the mannequins to turn on their stands and look down on him like live, annoyed danseurs.

The foyer is empty, save for a few chairs with magazines and catalogues on low tables. The stark white walls bear several black-and-white photographs of dancers en pointe, and at the end there are two doors of intricately-frosted glass. Yuuri looks at Phichit and Christophe questioningly.

“I’ll take the one on the left,” Christophe says. “You take the right?”

Just as Yuuri agrees, Phichit’s phone rings. He looks at the screen for half a second. “It’s the field office,” he says. “I’ll wait here.” He accepts the call and juts his chin at them, mouthing ‘Just go.’

Yuuri can hear the first bars of Phichit’s greeting as he takes the door on the right. However, as soon as the frosted glass swings shut behind him, he is thrown into chaos, just like at Popovich’s, just more concentrated and organized.

The hallway he’s standing in seems to be the eye of a hurricane of fabrics and people, with models diving in and out of outfits as they rush from room to room, followed by photographers and camera crews. Racks full of clothes and hangers peep through some of the doorways he passes; other rooms are full of chittering voices like birds in a tree. The smell of hairspray and acetone seeps through the hallway as Yuuri continues down its length.

He’s briefly impeded by a virtual stampede of young women in smart jackets, followed by harried assistants brandishing tape measures. They pass into a room lined with mirrors and ballet barres; Yuuri only has a brief moment to wonder what they’re doing there before the door is shut in his face.

Nevertheless, none of the people holding tape measures or barking directions match the image of Lilia Baranovskaya that Chris had pulled up on Wikipedia.

He’s about to approach one of the models that look to be relaxing when a familiar voice reaches through the chaos surrounding him. “Agent Katsuki?”

Yuuri turns, and the speaker trills delightedly, cutting his way to him with ease.

“It’s you! What a pleasant surprise to see you again; what brings you here?”

“Mr Nikiforov,” Yuuri greets, hiding his surprise. “Hello again.”

“Hello,” Viktor returns. He’s thankfully much more covered than the last time they had met, sporting a silky lavender button-up and an indigo blazer with lace designs, belted with a pale yellow material Yuuri can’t identify, and black leggings.

Yuuri then realises that he’d just checked someone out _while on the job_ , and shakes his head like a dog trying to rid its ears of water, nodding politely at Viktor in lieu of saying anything. Viktor smiles at him.

“Are you here to question Madame Baranovskaya, then?”

“Excuse me?” Yuuri jerks up to meet his gaze.

Viktor’s smile widens. “Well, last time, we met because you were questioning Georgi about a murder. Caused quite a fuss, honestly, _everyone_ in the building heard about it by the end of the day. I can only assume that you're here for a similar reason.”

Yuuri pushes up the bridge of his glasses. “You’re quite perceptive, aren’t you?” he asks rhetorically.

Viktor laughs, the cupid’s bow of his pink lips forming a heart as he does, and Yuuri is too helpless to _not_ find that utterly charming. “No, I have common sense. The airhead model stereotype is quite inaccurate, you know.”

“Well, I’ll say.” Yuuri cracks a smile in return. “Do you happen to know where Ms Baranovskaya is, by any chance?”

“If you want her to not hate you, call her Madame,” Viktor says, correcting him. Then he winces. “I do know, but I think she’s quite unavailable right now. Georgi arrived not ten minutes ago, and I hear they’re having another argument.”

The information takes Yuuri so off-guard that he can only utter, “What...?” in reply.

Viktor doesn’t elaborate. “I have no idea what you need her for, but if you have any questions about her clothes, I’m not needed on set for at least another fifteen. I could help, if you’d like.”

The offer is — convenient. A little too much so, Yuuri thinks, even if it’s coming from a man who had first appeared to him in a pair of angel wing-studded booty shorts. “You’re quite eager to help me, aren’t you?” he can’t help but ask.

Viktor winks, eye makeup accentuating the gesture. “Well, if helping you gets me your number, then feel free to ask _anything_ of me, Agent Katsuki,” he purrs.

Yuuri’s not proud to say that his throat goes extremely dry at that. He coughs, suddenly fascinated by a reproduction of a Degas painting on the nearby wall. “Well, um.” He shoots a look at the doors along the corridor. “Maybe we could go through the catalogues, then?”

“ _Just_ the catalogues?” asks Viktor, and Yuuri doesn’t need to look at him to know his eyebrow is quirked suggestively.

“Yes,” he says, a little too brusquely, and turns around to head back towards the foyer. The click of Viktor’s shoes (probably worth more than what he could make in a year) echo on the hardwood floor just behind him.

“Listen, Agent Katsuki,” Viktor says, his voice suddenly subdued. “I’m sorry if I’m coming on too strong, or making you uncomfortable —”

“No, you’re —” Yuuri catches himself, feeling his cheeks heat up. “I’m used to it,” he says after a moment.

“Oh,” says Viktor. A couple paces later, he speaks up again. “I’m not too surprised, though. I can’t imagine looks like yours show up at the Bureau outside of TV shows.”

Yuuri is so taken aback he nearly stumbles into the doorframe. “ _Excuse me_?” he asks, once his dignity has been recovered and his glasses assuredly in one piece. “Have you… looked in a mirror lately?”

Viktor looks around him, his ethereally beautiful features reflected back at him in every mirrored surface available. “Have _you_?” he retorts.

Yuuri snorts. “I’m not a supermodel like you, Mr Nikiforov,” he points out. “I spend most of my days up to my elbows in corpses; I’m hardly what you’d call ‘glamorous’.”

Viktor taps his chin thoughtfully. “Glamour is overrated,” he declares, before reaching elegantly for the door and opening it for Yuuri. “After you.”

Phichit is still in the foyer when they arrive, and both of his perfectly manicured eyebrows disappear into his hairline as Viktor takes a seat by one of the tables. “Didn’t we see you at Popovich’s?” he asks.

Viktor flashes him a mega-watt smile. “I model for anyone who can afford me,” he says, “but I’m also a luxury few can afford.” He then picks up one of the catalogues. “Now, what were you here for, Agent Katsuki?”

“Um,” says Yuuri, keenly aware of Phichit’s gossip senses tingling just a couple feet from him. He looks at the cover of the catalogue in Viktor’s hands, noticing the ballerinas on the cover. “Doesn’t Baranovskaya do suits?”

“Oh, yes!” Viktor sets that book down and picks up another. “She’s a woman of many talents. She doesn’t do men’s formalwear too often, but when she does, they’re exquisite.” He gestures towards his own ensemble, and Yuuri tries to look anywhere but at the stretch of silky material across his chest.

“Many talents?” he echoes.

“She insists on being called ‘Madame’ because of her background with the Bolshoi,” Viktor replies, flipping through the pages of the catalogue with his long, slender fingers. “She won’t talk about what made her transition to costume design, but…” Even his shrugs are elegant. “We all have our theories.”

“Such as?” wonders Yuuri. For a moment he debates over whether or not to take the seat next to the model, but after Phichit’s pointed giggling (which he’s _badly_ disguising as a coughing fit) decides to sit down. Viktor promptly crosses his legs so that they’re knee-to-knee, and spreads the catalogue across his lap.

“Well, common consensus is that she probably just had an accident,” he says, “though I know some people think the Bratva had something to do with her sudden retirement. I personally don’t care one way or the other.” He pauses on a page, turning towards Yuuri with a scrutinising gaze. “See anything you like?”

Yuuri decides not to deign that with an answer, as he flips through several more pages. A couple spreads back, he finds the outfit that had been on the body, and points to it. Viktor makes a small ‘ah’, noise, and looks Yuuri up and down.

“I think you’d look good in that,” he says, and Yuuri flinches. Viktor blinks at that, drawing back a little.

Yuuri focuses on the outfit, dismisses the comment, tries to not let the memory of the lookalike corpse crawl up his spine. “Did she make many of these outfits?” he asks.

From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Viktor nods, pursing his lips. “That one’s a couple seasons old,” he says. “She did produce a few copies of it for various orders, but anyone working with her at the time could have gotten one, I think.”

Yuuri falls silent, thinking. “Would she happen to have recorded those —”

“And who’s _this_?” The door they had come from swings open to admit another man, who circles around to lean on the back of Viktor’s chair. Viktor jerks to look at him, but Yuuri just raises an eyebrow. The newcomer gives Yuuri a once-over, more evaluative and less flirtatious than Viktor’s had been.

“Oh, look at my wrist!” Phichit chirps from the side. Yuuri whirls to look at him. “I’m going to check on Chris! Make sure he’s not trying to negotiate an orgy, y’know.” Feeling utterly betrayed, Yuuri barely manages to protest before Phichit goes through the door that Christophe had taken.

There’s a pregnant pause, and then Viktor laughs into his hand, looking at Yuuri. “Are _you_ going to be part of that? Interesting usage of our tax money.”

Yuuri splutters. “That’s classified.”

Viktor laughs brightly at that, and Yuuri can’t help but smile in return. Maybe implying that the Bureau sponsors depraved orgies on the government’s dime isn’t such a bad thing if it could get Viktor’s eyes to sparkle like that.

The eyebrows on the newcomer, however, inch higher. “Now I’m _dying_ to know who you are,” he says. “I’m JJ Leroy.”

“Another model,” Viktor adds.

“And your friend, Vicky! So really, who is this?”

Viktor’s right eye twitches. “This is Agent Katsuki. And _don’t_ call me ‘Vicky’.” The way he says it makes it sound like a dead horse of an argument, long beaten into the ground by JJ’s sheer stubbornness.

“Well then.” JJ nods, relaxing just the slightest. Then he smirks. “I didn’t know you had a thing for guys in uniform, Vicky.”

Yuuri coughs, hoping that his flush hasn’t reached his cheeks. “He’s helping me with an investigation, actually, Mr Leroy,” he says firmly.

JJ straightens, mouth parting in visible surprise. He regains his composure shortly enough though. “An investigation, huh?” he asks. “Well, if you really _are_ chatting up for an investigation,” he winks emphatically at Yuuri, ”Vicky’s the best person you can get to know the ins and outs of the fashion world other than a designer, since he’s been around for so long.”

“And how long have you been around?” asks Yuuri pleasantly.

“Not as long as Vicky, I’m afraid, but we’ve been friends throughout my career,” says JJ. “We do a lot of shoots together for various houses.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Such as?” he prompts, and JJ beams.

“Dolce & Gabbana, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino…” JJ trails off thoughtfully. “You know, the big guys.”

“I don’t know, actually,” says Yuuri baldly. He pauses, looking JJ up and down. “JJ’s not your real name, is it?”

“No, it’s just short for Jean-Jacques,” replies JJ. “But I thought JJ was catchier!” And with that, he does some strange gesture with his hands that Yuuri supposes looks like two sets of Js, but just looks more like a bad gang sign.

“Right.” Yuuri nods, before turning back to Viktor, whose smile is tighter than a drawn bowstring. “So, Mr Nikiforov —”

“Are you going to ask us for our alibis?” asks JJ excitedly. “I saw that on _Law and Order_!”

Viktor’s smile tightens even more. “He already asked me for mine, last time we met.”

“Well, you can humour me again,” says Yuuri sweetly, and Viktor nods, relaxing visibly. “Where were you on the nights of the 2nd and the 5th, Mr Nikiforov?”

“Wishing I’d known you back then, of course,” replies Viktor, and JJ makes a noise that wouldn’t be out of place at a frat party full of baboons. Viktor shoots him a cross look, before turning back to Yuuri. “Modelling for Dior and Armani. Actually, JJ was with me during the Armani shoot. And afterwards, too.”

“After?” echoes JJ, brows furrowed.

Viktor laughs. “Remember? The party? Or did you drink too much?”

“The party!” exclaims JJ, throwing his arms open. “Oh _yeah_! People got _so_ wasted; there was this guy who had too much champagne and tried to pole dance off a tiki torch, and he almost set the place on fire.”

“Well, not everyone can be a competent pole dancer when they’re drunk,” Viktor reasons, winking at Yuuri. Yuuri feels his cheeks heat up in spite of himself.

“Our parties are the _bomb dot com_ , Agent Katsuki, you really should go to one of them! Maybe Vicky could get you an invite!” JJ looks as if he’d like to extol more about the excitements of New York’s fashion model parties, but then the right door flings open.

“JJ!” a woman calls. “We need you!”

JJ obediently walks towards her, waving at Yuuri as he does. “It was nice to meet you, Agent Katsuki,” he says cheerfully, “Sorry, duty calls.”

The door shuts quietly behind him, finally leaving Yuuri and Viktor alone in the foyer. “He’s... quite the character, isn’t he?” Viktor mutters, almost… sullen?

”So you’ve been modelling for a long time? I suppose that you must have quite an impressive career, then,” Yuuri comments.

Viktor smiles — strangely though, not as bright as his others had been. “I bet it’s not as impressive as yours, Agent Katsuki,” he replies. He looks up for a moment and sighs at the clock. “I ought to head back now. Can’t keep the director waiting.”

Yuuri chuckles. “We’re not so different in that sense,” he says, and the smile Viktor offers him this time reaches his eyes. Suddenly feeling hot under his collar again, Yuuri adjusts his glasses and digs into the pocket of his jacket. “Well, uh. You were quite helpful, and, well, since it looks like this case might be taking on a bit of a couture angle, you might be helpful again in the future, Mr. Nikiforov.”

“Glad to be _helpful_ ,” replies Viktor, and he doesn’t need to wink this time for Yuuri to get the sense in his words. He feels his cheeks heating yet again anyway, as he pulls out his card and a pen, and scribbles his number on it.

“This is my work phone,” he says, holding out the card. Viktor takes it, a quiet reverence in his movements as he holds up the card to the light. “Feel free to call it directly if you see or hear anything suspicious, okay?”

“Can I call you even if it’s not suspicious?” asks Viktor. “And really, you should call me Viktor.”

Yuuri laughs nervously. “No,” he says, and he would’ve said something else, tried to explain why it would be a bad idea for Viktor to hound his work phone or something, but at that moment the door to the left swings open and Popovich comes stumbling in, shortly followed by Madame Baranovskaya herself.

“You might have been my apprentice, Gosha, but you are an utter disgrace to the house of Baranovskaya to be asking me for money _again_!” she barks at him, Russian accent shaping her words into something hard and blunt to hammer him out of her territory. “You have your own brand, for god’s sake! Make money from your profits, not shameless begging!”

Upon her sudden realisation that they are not alone in the foyer, Madame Baranovskaya’s mouth falls shut and her eyes narrow in on Yuuri, who suddenly has the feeling that he’s little better than a bug being examined under a high-power microscope. He squirms, especially when he hears the other door swing shut as Viktor escapes the awkward situation brewing in the foyer.

Popovich startles a little, recognising Yuuri as well. He opens his mouth, but Madame Baranovskaya gives him a hard glare made only more intimidating by her eyeshadow. “ _Out_ , Gosha!” she snaps, and he wilts like a dying weed, fleeing out the studio door.

Madame Baranovskaya strides to the door to ascertain that Popovich had gone, before promptly whirling around and turning on Yuuri.

“What are you doing here, harassing my models?” The click of her heels on the hardwood reminds Yuuri ominously of military boots on a training ground.

He straightens up, standing his ground. “I’m Agent Katsuki of the FBI,” Yuuri says evenly. “There was no harassment involved, Madame.”

Her lips thin into a hard line. “I already spoke with two of your people,” she bites out. “And I told them the same thing I told you: I refuse to speak to you without my lawyer present, and if you come back, you better have a warrant.”

Almost as if on cue, the door to the left swings open once more and Phichit and Christophe are shepherded through by two assistants who look a little too burly to be designers. Madame Baranovskaya snaps her fingers, and the assistants draw back immediately. Phichit rubs gingerly at his forearm.

With all the force of a hurricane, Madame Baranovskaya gestures towards the door. Needing no other encouragement, Yuuri leads Phichit and Christophe out into the hallway. They pass by Popovich on the ground floor, slinking his way to the basement parking lot, but the other designer pays them no mind.

“Well,” says Phichit, as they head out to their own car, “I can guarantee you Chris had no opportunity back there to plan an orgy.”

“Shame,” say Yuuri drily, clambering into the backseat. “But did either of you two hear more about her fight with Popovich?”

Phichit hums thoughtfully from the passenger seat. “He was asking her for money and she was having none of it,” he muses. “But how can a designer successful enough to be on Fashion Week be strapped for cash?”

“We better follow the money, then,” says Christophe, and starts the car.

As they pull out onto the street, Phichit turns in the passenger seat to flash a wide grin at Yuuri. “So,” he says. “That’s the second time you talked to that model. Are you onto something that you’re not telling us? Or —” he wiggles his eyebrows — “Are you onto some _one_?”

“Yeah,” deadpans Yuuri. “Director Hobbs herself, if you don’t shut up.”

Phichit snorts. “You’ve been threatening to move me to Parks and Rec ever since I got onto your team. I’ll have you know that the National Parks Service is actually pretty _cool_ , unlike you.”

“He’s clearly avoiding the question, Phi,” Christophe says as he makes a turn to head back south to the field office. “Don’t let him off.”

Phichit salutes him. “So, who is it?” he asks. “What’s his name? You know his name, right? I mean, you’ve already seen him in his underwear, so it’d be pretty backwards if you didn’t —”

“It’s Viktor,” snaps Yuuri, mostly to shut Phichit up.

“Viktor,” repeats Phichit. “Hm, does Viktor Silver-Hair-and-Nice-Ass have a last name?”

Yuuri groans, long-suffering. “Nikiforov,” he replies, rolling his eyes.

There’s a sudden screech, and Yuuri unexpectedly finds his face smushed against the back of Christophe’s seat as the car suddenly lurches forward. “ _Nikiforov_?” demands Christophe, whipping around in his seat to boggle at Yuuri.

The sound of car horns fills the air. A taxi pulls up next to them, its driver rolling down the window to flip them the bird before cutting in front. Phichit swears in Thai, while Christophe sheepishly resumes driving. Yuuri doesn’t look, but he’s certain Christophe is boring holes into the top of his head through the rearview mirror.

“Yeah, why?” he asks. “Is he a big deal?”

Christophe makes a noise that Yuuri would associate with an irate goose. “A _big deal_?” he squawks. “Yuuri, if I wasn’t driving right now, I would concuss you with his Wikipedia page right now. As it is — Phichit wan Kenobi —”

Phichit whips out his phone. “Yes, Princess Christophe?” he trills.

Christophe’s voice is grim. “You’re my only ho.”

As Phichit’s thumbs fly across his phone, Yuuri desperately wonders if he could requisition _himself_ to Parks and Rec. After a couple seconds, Phichit makes a triumphant noise, and holds up his phone right in Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri groans, leaning back from the bright glare of the screen. “What am I supposed to be looking at?” he demands.

“Your boyfriend’s Wikipedia page,” says Phichit, with a wide, sunny, shit-eating grin.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” says Yuuri.

“ _Yet_ ,” replies Phichit, in a voice that, until now, Yuuri had only ever seen him use on criminals. With a sigh, he takes the phone from Phichit and scrolls through the page.

“So what?” he asks as he does. “He grew up in New York, he started modelling young, he’s the face of Armani and Yes Saint Lauren —”

“ _Yves Saint Laurent_ ,” Christophe screams, accidentally setting off the horn as he slams a hand against the steering wheel.

Yuuri raises an eyebrow, trying not to show how rattled he is at Christophe’s sudden vehemence. “You are… really invested in this, aren’t you,” he remarks.

“Fashion design is my _passion_ ,” moans Christophe, almost as if Yuuri had just gutted him. “In case you don’t remember, I dated a _model_. Several models, actually. But at least one supermodel.”

“Mm-hmm,” says Yuuri, now glancing through Viktor’s admittedly brief personal life section. A part of him is relieved to note that Wikipedia has not recorded a current partner, though there seem to be several rumoured ones. “Your point is?”

“Viktor Nikiforov’s face is on the screens at _Times Square_ ,” Christophe hisses. “His face is actually on a billboard right _next_ to us. And here you are, talking as if he’s just some random witness you pulled off the street —”

“He _is_ a witness,” Yuuri states blandly. “I asked him questions about the case.”

“He. Is. A. _Supermodel_ ,” snaps Christophe. “He is world-famous. He is the highest paid, most in-demand person in the fashion industry right now. Designers throw themselves at his feet for Fashion Weeks — even _Women’s_ Fashion Weeks!”

Yuuri tries to meld himself into the back of the car seat. “You’re _really_ into him,” he remarks.

“Yuuri,” says Christophe sweetly. “I would commit murder to trade spots with you. I would murder _you_ to trade spots with you.”

Yuuri snorts. “I’ve only talked to him twice.”

Christophe takes a deep, calming breath. “That’s twice more than 99.99% of the world’s population,” he growls. “Including _me_.”

“Well, if we have to go interview another designer and he happens to be there —” Yuuri begins, but he’s suddenly cut off by Christophe. Again.

“Wait a minute,” the man gasps. “One fucking minute — are you telling me that while I nearly got my eye taken out by a makeup artist at Popovich’s, _you_ were chatting up Viktor Nikiforov in _lingerie_?”

“I was not _chatting him up_ ,” says Yuuri, offended. “Like I said, I was asking him questions about the case! He was being _helpfu_ l!”

“ _Helpful_ ,” deadpans Christophe. “And I guess he was being _helpful_ at Baranovskaya’s, while I was busy trying not to get clotheslined by one of her assistants?”

“As a matter of fact, _yes_ ,” snaps Yuuri. “He gave me valuable information about the clothes on the recent victim.”

Christophe arches an eyebrow at him in the rearview mirror as they stop at an intersection. “And I suppose you gave him your number?”

“Yeah,” says Yuuri. Christophe turns an apoplectic shade of purple. “I gave him the tipline number. Like we give all witnesses.”

There’s another honk, as Christophe slams his forehead against the steering wheel. “You’re _hopeless_ ,” he states.

“No,” replies Yuuri, starting to reach the end of his patience. “I’m _professional_.”

“That professionalism is the reason you’re going to die _alone_ ,” chirps Phichit, who has been avidly tapping at his phone this entire time.

“So?” asks Yuuri, his voice sharp. “This professionalism is why our team has had the highest number of closed cases for the past five years. If you’re so dissatisfied by my professionalism, why don’t you go back to counterterrorism? Have fun with some anarchist gun nuts.”

Phichit cringes, and Christophe sighs. “Sorry,” says Christophe, as they finally pull onto the street past Foley Square and its immense fountain, heading for the closest parking structure to the Federal Building. “It’s just — Nikiforov is kinda a big deal.”

“Doesn’t take an FBI Agent to notice that,” Yuuri replies drolly, “especially considering you nearly got us into three car accidents during the course of this conversation.”

Christophe wilts in contrition. Yuuri sighs again.

“I’ll introduce you two, if our paths cross with his again,” he offers. “Anyway, in the meantime, let’s see what’s up with Popovich’s accounts.”

* * *

_July 19, 2017  
FBI Field Office, New York City_

“So, I pulled some strings,” Phichit says a few days later, as he shows up to their desk with a pleased expression and a bundle of papers. “A friend in the IRS told me that Popovich is actually currently being audited for something on his latest tax returns, and we’re now invited to audit the audit this afternoon.”

Yuuri looks up, suddenly becoming aware of the crick in his neck from poring too long over the autopsy results of the third body. “Good work, Phi,” he says, smiling, as Christophe returns with two cups of coffee.

“You two make any headway?” asks Phichit as he drops the papers down next to them. Christophe waves a hand at the results in Yuuri’s hands.

“We’ve hit a match with Missing Persons,” he says. “Body number three is Eric Trentwood, reported missing about five years ago. A New York native, actually — he didn’t wander too far, compared to others. He was killed the night before we found the body, according to the autopsy.”

“What kind of lifestyle?” asks Phichit.

“Low-risk,” says Yuuri. “Had a job at the MTA, lived in the Bronx with his husband.” He pauses, grimacing. “Leo had to inform the husband — well, ex-husband now. It wasn’t pretty.”

Phichit frowns, especially when confronted with the victim’s photograph. “Trentwood, huh? The others were Asian.”

“Well, it was a little difficult to tell that before the lab removed the makeup,” says Yuuri. “And before you ask, those turned up normal in the tox screenings, too.”

“Professional-quality makeup, though,” Christophe adds. “So we’re not certain if it’s a copycat or not.”

“The hair colour is his own. That, plus the time he’s spent missing suggests that the unsub might have taken him during his exploratory period. You know, before he figured out he wanted to kidnap Asian men.”

“So, is this racially motivated?” asks Phichit.

Yuuri shakes his head. “I still think it’s romantically motivated, if anything,” he replies. “Given the contouring on this one, the unsub is trying to make their victims in the likeness of someone specific.”

“Like yourself?” wonders Phichit, sending him a long, hard look. Yuuri ignores it.

“I still doubt that,” he says, turning to Phichit’s folder of tax returns. “I just happen to fit the profile.”

“Romantically motivated, huh,” adds Christophe as he sets down his cup of coffee. He takes a file from Yuuri, frowning. “Clearly romance is dead.”

“Or not, according to the IRS,” Phichit says, grinning. “Popovich apparently bought a hundred dozen roses this past Valentine’s day and put it in his expenditures.”

“It would be an expenditure if it was for his work,” Christophe points out. “And I do recall an _American Beauty_ -inspired photoshoot he did for his lingerie line this year.”

“Oh, yeah, the one with Anya Romanova?” Phichit asks, tapping the folder again. “I also got something on her — my connections said that they’re considering auditing her as well.”

“Who is Anya Romanova?” At some point, Yuuri really should dig around to learn some of the names in the fashion industry, considering the involvement they’ve had so far. His offer to Viktor flashes in his memory, but he shakes it off.

Thankfully, Christophe makes up for his lack of knowledge. “One of Popovich’s signature models,” he says, with a heavy sigh. “And if I remember correctly, he’s called her his ‘muse’ in several interviews.”

“Maybe there’s a connection?” Phichit wonders. “The meeting with Popovich is tomorrow around 3; we could ask him then.”

“No Fashion Week scrambling to escape to this time; maybe he’ll be a bit more forthcoming,” Yuuri says. “The thing is, are we sure this has anything to do with the case?”

“Well, when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” quotes Phichit, shrugging. “We’re just at the elimination part. Better cover our bases, make sure this is a dead end before we dismiss it, right?”

Fair enough. Yuuri turns back to the autopsy report, with nothing else to say. Next to him, Christophe takes another sip of coffee.

“Any news on Seung-gil?” he asks.

“I know about as much as you do,” replies Phichit, shaking his head.

Halfway across town, lying underneath Detective Lee’s empty desk, Hoppang raises her head onto her paws and whines.

* * *

_July 21, 2017  
Baz Bagel  & Restaurant, New York City_

“ _It’s been several days since the last known victim of the Couture Cutter was found in Jacob Riis Park, and police say they’re still no closer to finding any answers. The FBI maintains that they are examining every lead possible, and remain hopeful in bringing this criminal to justice…_ ”

“Yuuri,” Phichit says, stealing his attention from the TV of the bagel shop they’re in. “Come on, it’s almost our turn at the counter.”

Yuuri’s eyes flicker back to the red-clad newscaster reporting on the TV. “I wish the media would stop giving serial killers catchy names,” he complains. “Son of Sam, the Zodiac, BTK — it just makes the killer more well-known and remembered than their victims.”

“What kind of a name is ‘Couture Cutter’ anyway?” Christophe scoffs. “It hardly strikes fear into the heart of the populace. If I were a serial killer, I’d change up my MO just so I wouldn’t get such a ridiculous name.”

“No, you’d probably just end up with ‘Assman’, or something,” Phichit jokes, winking and elbowing him. Christophe laughs.

“It sounds like more like the name of a serial shoplifter with a grudge against the fashion industry and a giant pair of scissors, honestly,” someone says from right behind Yuuri.

He pivots around reflexively, not having sensed the man get close. He pauses upon realising who it is — again. “Viktor?”

Phichit stifles a giggle as a cough. Yuuri steps on his foot. Next to Phichit, Christophe is emitting a squeal at a frequency that can only be heard by dogs.

“Agent Katsuki!” Viktor beams, looking pleased as punch at Yuuri’s slip to his first name. “Out of all the bagel shops in the world, you had to walk into my regular one. I’m flattered.” His gaze flickers briefly to Christophe and Phichit, who are now both struggling not to laugh. “And these are your colleagues, right? I saw them at our last two meetings.”

“Yeah,” says Yuuri. “SSA Chulanont and Dr Giacometti. Chris, Phichit, Viktor Nikiforov. Like I _promised_.”

“It’s an _honour_ ,” Phichit adds cheerily, extending a hand. “Wikipedia says a lot of nice things about you.”

Viktor laughs, shaking his hand. “I try to keep the juicy things off Wikipedia,” he replies smoothly, before raising an eyebrow at Christophe. “So, a doctor, not an agent?” he asks.

Christophe turns several shades of red. “Sort of an agent,” he says. “I haven’t gotten to where Phichit and Yuuri are, though — got a little sidetracked.”

“By a second PhD,” adds Phichit in a stage whisper. “He’s supposed to be our forensics analyst, I just call him an angel.”

Christophe flushes harder at that. “Aww, mon cher, I didn’t know you thought so highly of me,” he teases as the line continues to inch along the glass display cases full of bagels and spreads. “Most of the time you just tell me to fetch you more hot sauce.”

Viktor, however, has turned the full power of his attention back onto Yuuri. “Sweet or salty?” he asks.

Yuuri blinks, and Viktor nods towards the display case. Feeling his cheeks heat up, Yuuri turns his gaze towards the cornucopia of bagels and trimmings and swallows, indecisive.

“Can’t go wrong with lox, if you like the salty,” says Viktor cheerily from next to him. “Though I’m also fond of their scallion cream cheese.”

“And the bagel itself?” asks Yuuri.

“Whole wheat. Healthier. I’ve been told I should try the gluten-free ones, but I don’t see the point in crowding out gluten-sensitive people for their bagels.”

Yuuri nods. “What are you getting?”

Viktor’s gaze seems to drift to his lips; Yuuri licks them nervously, feeling his heart stutter when Viktor’s cheeks flush just the slightest shade of pink.

“I’m feeling something sweet, myself,” the model murmurs, and now it’s Yuuri’s turn to blush, absently pushing his glasses up his nose as he pretends to scrutinise the menu. Up ahead of them in line, Christophe and Phichit place their orders and step to the side with the other waiting customers, so now it’s Yuuri’s turn.

“Um,” he says, sending a helpless look at Viktor before looking up at the menu again. “A plain bagel with honey walnut cream cheese?”

“Would you like it to be toasted?” asks the cashier. Yuuri nods, and they ring him up. He’s about to pull out his wallet when Viktor steps forward with his card at the ready.

(Yuuri can’t help but notice that the card is a luxurious black metal, and swallows.)

“I’ll get it,” says Viktor sweetly, smiling at Yuuri before turning to the cashier with his brightest smile. “Throw in a whole wheat with honey walnut cream cheese, please.”

“Toasted as well?” asks the cashier.

“Lightly done,” says Viktor, and then hands over his card. Yuuri shuffles awkwardly from next to him.

“Thank you,” he says. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s all right,” replies Viktor, grinning. “Seems like you’ve been having a trying couple of days, after all. Do you want coffee? I could add it to the order.”

“i’m fine,” says Yuuri. “The coffee at the FBI field office is only a bit better-tasting than dumpster slime, but it wakes you up like a punch to the face.”

Viktor laughs at that. “Sounds like a necessary evil,” he quips, and Yuuri grins.

Their bagels arrive moments later, carefully wrapped and placed in a paper bag. Viktor digs in, surfacing with Yuuri’s and handing it over, before stepping towards the door.

“I gotta go make sure my dog Makkachin hasn’t pulled free of his leash and run into the street,” he explains with an apologetic smile.

Yuuri’s interest is piqued at the sound of the word ‘dog’. “Really?” he asks. “What breed?”

“Standard poodle,” replies Viktor, as he breezes out onto the street to untie Makkachin from the nearby pole. Yuuri goes out to help him, holding both bagels as he watches Viktor dote on his poodle.

“Do you have a dog?” Viktor asks with a smile, as he takes his bagel back.

“My dog is with my family, unfortunately.” Keenly aware of Christophe and Phichit still staring at them from the door, Yuuri takes a bite out of his own bagel. It’s warm and sweet, just as he expected.

“What breed?” echoes Viktor. Yuuri bends down to pet Makkachin, grinning as the poodle licks his hand eagerly and paws at his leg.

“Toy poodle,” he says. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“You miss her?” asks Viktor.

“All the time.” Yuuri chuckles, and then looks back inside where Phichit is mouthing something at him and pointing to his watch. “Listen, thank you for the bagel. I’ll, uh, buy you coffee sometime to make up for it?”

Viktor waves a hand. “It was no trouble,” he says. “Though I’d hoped I could get you dinner sometime?”

“Oh.” Yuuri pauses, shooting Phichit a slightly panicked look. Phichit arches one slightly amused eyebrow; next to him, Christophe flashes a thumbs-up.

Yuuri feels his cheeks heating as he turns back to Viktor, who’s still looking expectantly at him. Despite the fact that his heart (and certain _other_ parts of his body) is telling him to accept the offer, he shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve uh, got a date with the Couture Cutter.”

Viktor arches an eyebrow. “You do?” he wonders.

Yuuri smiles apologetically. “I don’t really date when I’m on a case.” Or ever, actually. The last time he’d been on one had to have been back at the Academy, or even before that. There are some things that must be sacrificed, after all, if one is to become the best profiler in the FBI.

Viktor nods. “What about after, then?” he asks. “I could give you my number, and you can call me after your case is closed.”

“You’re awfully persistent,” Yuuri remarks. “You’d make a good agent.”

“Too bad I hate bureaucracy,” laments Viktor, and he pulls out the receipt from his bag, scribbling down a set of numbers and handing it to Yuuri. “Here, your reward for catching the Couture Cutter.” He winks.

Yuuri’s frankly amazed his cheeks haven’t caught on fire yet. “I really shouldn’t, Mr Nikiforov.”

“You really should,” retorts Viktor. “Call me Viktor, that is. My name sounds good on you.”

Yuuri laughs at that, surprised. He slides the receipt out of Viktor’s hands and pockets it, shaking his head. “Thank you, I suppose,” he manages, and Viktor beams.

Slowly he leans up, presses a quick peck to the model’s cheek, before darting back into the warm sanctuary of the bagel shop. Upon spotting him, Christophe whistles and applauds, while Phichit claps him on the back.

“You finally got his number?” Phichit asks. Yuuri holds up the receipt with trembling hands, before stuffing it into his jacket pocket. Christophe mutters something that sounds like ‘about time’, but Yuuri determinedly ignores that.

Outside the shop, Makkachin tugs at his leash while Viktor absently touches the cheek where Yuuri’s lips had been.

* * *

_July 21, 2017  
Internal Revenue Service Office, New York City_

After Phichit and Christophe have gotten their orders as well (Phichit’s had taken some extra time because he had ordered a bagel sandwich with all of the trimmings), the three of them head up the street to the local IRS office where Popovich’s audit is supposed to take place that afternoon.

Popovich startles when they enter the small conference room. “They’re not part of the IRS,” he says to the auditor, who barely spares the three agents a glance from the top of her file.

“Claire Lark,” she says. “Which one of you is SSA Chulanont?” She’s surprisingly small, in a birdlike way.

“That’d be me,” replies Phichit cheerily, waving at Popovich. “Thanks for having us here, Ms Lark.”

“Did you bring me the bagel I was promised?” asks Claire.

Phichit responds by sliding the paper bag containing the bagel sandwich down the table at her. She catches it expertly, opening it to inspect the contents.

“Everything seems to be in order,” she remarks, before setting the bag to the side. “Take a seat, gentlemen.”

Popovich gapes at them. “I thought this was going to be one-on-one,” he complains.

“The offer to take you down to the police station still stands,” Yuuri points out cheerily as he takes his seat, which gets Popovich to pale considerably.

“I’d like my lawyer to be here, then,” he says, reaching for his phone.

So they end up having to wait for Popovich’s lawyer to show up. When he does, Yuuri’s first impression is that a Siberian winter had descended upon the room. The man’s expression is no-nonsense and more guarded than a Swiss bank vault. He greets Popovich in Russian, before settling his briefcase on the table and nodding brusquely at them.

”Vasiliy Yastrebov from Feltsman and Company,” he states.

“SSA Yuuri Katsuki, FBI,” replies Yuuri. “These are my colleagues, SSA Phichit Chulanont and Dr Christophe Giacometti.”

“I trust you have questions for my client?” asks Mr Yastrebov.

“They can wait for after Ms Lark’s questions,” replies Yuuri, smiling at Claire, who quickly returns her attentions from the bagel back to Popovich’s tax returns with a smile.

“Books, please,” she says, and Popovich pulls out a file full of papers from his own satchel and hands them over.

Based on the increasingly intense frown on Ms Lark’s face, it’s apparent that there are discrepancies. As the audit goes on, Popovich’s expression grows steadily more and more agitated, while his lawyer remains stone-faced next to him.

“You seem to have made a substantial number of loan payoffs to a Vongola LLC,” remarks Ms Lark after a moment. “Are there any records of these loans from the company itself?”

“I didn’t think to bring them with me,” says Popovich, whose ears have gone rather red.

Yuuri squints. Popovich clearly lies by the book. “You look rather uncomfortable, Mr Popovich,” he remarks. “Did you happen to lose the promissory notes?”

Popovich startles at the interruption, but Mr Yastrebov puts a hand on his forearm, stilling him.

“My client was only obliged to bring in his records from the previous fiscal year,” he says. “The promissory note and relevant paperwork are from seven years ago.”

“Seven years ago?” wonders Christophe. “Weren’t you still Baranovskaya’s apprentice back then?”

Popovich opens his mouth, but Mr Yastrebov glares, and he subsides quickly.

Yuuri sighs, leaning forward on the table with his fingers steepled. “Mr Yastrebov, I hope you’re aware that lying to a federal agent is a felony that can lead to up to five years in prison,” he says. “On top of another five years for tax evasion, that’s… a lot of missed Fashion Weeks, don’t you think?”

Mr Yastrebov remains unswayed. “I fail to see why a federal agent specialising in violent crimes is interested in my client’s tax returns,” he states drily.

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Phichit chimes in. “Suspicion of murder.”

“I’m not the Couture Cutter!” Popovich snaps.

“Your clothes were found at one of the crime scenes. So was Madame Baranovskaya’s. We know your relationship with your former mentor is strained because of your finances, and as we told the press,” and here Yuuri pushes his glasses higher, “we are investigating all possible leads.”

“That doesn’t mean I killed anyone!” Popovich exclaims.

“Then prove it,” retorts Yuuri. “Tell us what those transactions are. For all we know, they could have been drug purchases.”

“Drugs?” Popovich squawks, resembling nothing so much as a parrot with its tail feathers being pulled. “No! They were for my muse!”

A pause. Christophe clears his throat. “Anya Romanova?” he asks.

Popovich nods. Mr Yastrebov’s face becomes even stonier than before, if that was possible, and he turns slowly towards him, disdain oozing from his pores with every move. From this angle, Yuuri can see that there’s a scar on his cheek.

Clearly, the lawyer has standards for his clients’ conduct, and Popovich visibly wilts under the man’s intense glare.

“Well,” he says, turning and smiling weakly at Claire. “I buy my Anya nice things to make her happy, and she in turn provides me with inspiration.”

“She’s your sugar baby,” Christophe intones.

“Well, you don’t have to put it so _crassly_ ,” complains Popovich. “Anya and I don’t see it that way.”

Claire blinks, and then puts a hand over her mouth to catch the piece of bagel that had almost fallen out. “You made a shell company just to conceal your _sugar relationship_ ,” she states.

Popovich can do nothing but nod. Very, very slowly.

Claire sighs, setting down the file. “This isn’t the most shocking thing I’ve heard, and I’m dating the CEO of General Electric,” she says, shaking her head. “In terms of stupidity, though, it is pretty on par with the gentleman who tried to pass off a Pollock as his son’s art class project, so…”

“Congratulations,” cuts in Mr Yastrebov, before turning to Yuuri with a pained expression. “I would’ve preferred the drugs.”

* * *

_July 23, 2017  
Hudson River Bay, New York City_

“Well,” Yuuri says, dry tone carrying through the air despite the sounds of boats on the Hudson River churning through the water, “Definitely know Popovich had nothing to do with this one.”

It’s been only a day from the audit, and there’s already another body. This one had been found by fishermen bringing in their daily haul; the NYPD had been quickly dispatched in a boat to retrieve the corpse from the shell-shocked fishmongers. The FBI agents, of course, are along for the ride.

“So do you think it’s still the Couture Cutter?” asks Christophe. “The preliminary reports say the body’s naked and missing its lips.”

“Could be a copycat,” says Yuuri. “Or the unsub has changed their MO because the press is publicising parts of their old one.”

Their boat reaches the fishing boat, and Emil Nekola steps over to record preliminary findings about the body. “There’s water in his lungs!” he shouts over to them. “I’ll have to do some tests to make sure, but I suspect John Doe went in the water still breathing!”

“Test for ketamine, too,” Yuuri calls back, shivering a little in the wind from out in the middle of the river. A couple tourist boats go by, but give them a wide berth. Yuuri watches as they vanish down the river nonetheless.

“The lips were removed with surgical precision,” adds Dr Nekola. “If it’s not your unsub, it might be a similarly-qualified copycat.”

“We’ll see,” says Yuuri, stepping over to the fishing boat to peer at the body. He kneels down, taking in the perfect white teeth visible behind the missing lips, the high cheekbones and the lightly-tanned skin. “A little hard to tell right now, considering the lack of an apparent connection to the fashion industry on this one. But he does fit the victimology so far.” He pauses. “How long has he been in the water?”

“Hard to say right now,” remarks Dr Nekola, “but judging by the Hudson’s average temperature this time of the year and his relative lack of decomposition, he’s probably been in the water for one or two days. But I’ll tell you more when we do an autopsy.”

“Yes, keep us posted,” agrees Yuuri, before stepping over to where Leo is finishing taking down the fishermen’s statements.

“They all say they ran into the John Doe floating face down on their way into port,” says Leo as soon as Yuuri approaches him. “None of them know who he is, of course.”

“The mutilation to his face certainly helps,” Yuuri points out. “Forensic countermeasure as well as a method of torture. Our unsub lacks remorse for their victims.”

“I thought you said they kill out of love,” Leo says, frowning.

“Love for who the victims represent,” replies Yuuri, shaking his head. “That person, whoever they are, is on a pedestal far above the victims themselves. In comparison to this person, all other people are lacking.”

“And you’re definitely ruling out that designer who’s being audited?” asks Leo. Yuuri raises an eyebrow, and Leo flushes. “Phichit keeps me in the loop,” he explains.

“Right.” Yuuri nods. “It’s _definitely_ not Popovich,” he says. “Phichit probably told you what happened during the audit, right?”

Leo stifles a smile behind his hand. “I doubt someone who catches the IRS’s attention for having a sugar baby’s going to be sophisticated enough to be our unsub,” he says, chuckling.

Yuuri nods again, adjusting his glasses. “I haven’t finished the profile yet, but I’m pretty sure by now that Popovich doesn’t fit it,” he agrees.

* * *

_July 23, 2017  
FBI Field Office, New York City_

“We’ve got preliminary reports,” announces Christophe later that afternoon. “Emil confirmed that John Doe — or rather, Hyun-min Han — was alive before he went in the water. Dosed to high hell with ketamine, though.”

“So, minus the lack of expensive clothing, he fits.” Phichit says. “We haven’t publicized that the victims were drugged with ketamine, so I doubt it’s a copycat.”

Yuuri drums his fingers, staring at the pictures from the crime scene. “What made him so different?” he asks aloud to no one in particular. “No clothes, no care for this one. Trentwood was definitely an afterthought, but it seems that Mr Han angered the unsub in some way that led to his lips being cut off.”

“Maybe he was too mouthy,” Christophe jokes, only to raise his hands as both Yuuri and Phichit glare at him. “Sorry, too soon.”

Phichit shakes his head as he takes the reports from Christophe and compares them to the others. “You know, this one seems really sloppy for our unsub,” he says. “Particulates from the water in his lungs, sediment in his hair, everything. Emil even figured out that it was Mr Han because of the healing cartilage piercings in his nose and… farther south.”

“Part of the remaking process,” Yuuri says. “Whoever this unsub is remaking their victims to look like has no piercings.”

Christophe and Phichit both look down at his crotch. Yuuri resists the urge to slap both of them.

“You’ve both seen it!” he snaps. “We pee together on a regular basis!”

“Should I come back later?” Captain Cialdini’s voice interrupts from the doorway. The three of them spring away from one another, Yuuri feeling all of the blood in his face drain out as he beams at the NYPD officer.

“CiaoCiao!” Phichit leans casually against the desk, nearly toppling Christophe’s mug of coffee as he does. “What are you doing here at the field office?”

“I came to inform you that the higher-ups are waiting on a profile from you guys,” replies Captain Cialdini, crossing his arms, “but I seem to have walked into a threesome negotiation. Maybe I should give you guys some privacy.”

“No!” Yuuri exclaims, just as Christophe mutters something that sounds like ‘if only’ under his breath. Yuuri elbows him.

“No, I mean, yes, but not because of — _no_. We’re making some changes to the profile, but we can probably deliver it to you tonight.”

Captain Cialdini deliberately makes eye contact with every single one of them. “If you’re free,” he states, and Yuuri feels his cheeks reddening in spite of himself.

“Oh, we will be,” he says, and the captain nods before heading towards the director’s office.

True to his word, the shadows are just starting to lengthen on the city sidewalks outside when Yuuri, Phichit, and Christophe gather the captains of the various NYPD precincts to deliver the profile. To his credit, Captain Cialdini only looks mildly surprised at their availability, to which Phichit chuckles and whispers, “he was just joking.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “How would you know?” he asks.

“If he was serious about potential fraternisation, he’d have prepared a PowerPoint and handed out condoms at the end.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” Yuuri remarks.

Phichit only winks and turns back to the lectern.

As the last of the captains take their seat in the press conference room, Yuuri feels that familiar knot of apprehension in his chest which he gets right before making a public statement. Taking a deep breath and a sip of water, he closes his eyes, and thinks about the profile.

“We’re looking for someone of indeterminate race, aged 20 to 40 and attractive, capable of hiding their true nature under a solid veneer of respectability. They are also extremely rich or well-connected to the fashion industry, judging by their ability to clothe three of our four known victims in designer clothing. They also have a secure location where they keep their victims alive for years, as well as access to large amounts of ketamine to keep those victims subdued.”

He takes a breath here, looking over at Phichit and Christophe, who nod and gesture for him to continue.

“While the modus operandi of this unsub varies from victim to victim, one signature is apparent and is especially tied to their victim preferences — they are remaking their victims in the image of a person they are obsessed with. They love their victims for who they represent, but punish them when the fantasy shatters. As long as the victims can act as reasonable surrogates for the true object of this unsub’s desires, they remain alive and — excepting the ketamine in their systems — in good condition.”

He clears his throat, looking at the slide compilation of the victim’s faces splashed across the screen, and then adds:

“This unsub is very organised and mobile. They are capable of taking victims from as far afield as Los Angeles, and their victim preference of low-risk young Asian men suggests that they charm or use a ruse to lure their victims to them. They are careful to abduct and dispose of their victims in ways that leave very little forensic evidence both at the scene and on the body, suggesting a high level of planning. This planning also explains how they have been able to keep some of their victims imprisoned for years. Also, judging by the access to ketamine and the near-surgical mutilation of the last three victims — the dismemberment of Richard Chen, the missing feet of Eric Trentwood, and the missing lips of Hyung-min Han — the unsub has medical experience.”

“If the unsub has been operational for years, how come we haven’t gotten anything on them or found any of their other bodies yet?” wonders another captain.

“You might have,” says Phichit. “There are some cold cases that look promising, but we’re hesitant on linking them to the current murders because there are some differences in victimology and signature.”

“But those could have been from the unsub’s discovery phase,” adds Yuuri. “If you have any cold cases in your precinct that you think might fit what we’re looking at, please don’t hesitate to send them to us.”

Captain Cialdini raises his hand. “Do you think the unsub’s a psychopath?” he asks.

“No,” replies Yuuri. “At least, we don’t have enough information on them right now to be certain. They are definitely charismatic, but based on their signature it’s clear they feel _something_ for their victims, even if it ultimately results in the victims’ deaths.” He pauses. “Also, psychopathy isn’t a surefire sign that someone’s a serial killer, and not all serial killers are psychopaths.”

Silence suffuses through the room after that. Yuuri could swear he can hear the conversations of the people down below on the street, and feels a familiar weariness seep into his bones.

“Given the sudden surge of openly disposed-of and posed bodies, the unsub is clearly aware of our investigation and may even be using these victims as a sort of call for recognition of their work. They are sensitive to the press coverage of this case, even going so far as to drop the latest body as a drowning without visible ties to the fashion industry, just to avoid being pinned down by the press as the ‘Couture Cutter’. So if we wish to capture this unsub, we must keep a very tight rein on the information we choose to release to the general public. They are watching our every move.”

The meeting wraps up soon after that. Some of the captains are already putting in calls to their precincts to check through their cold cases. Yuuri isn’t particularly thrilled at the prospect of going through more of those, but he doesn’t say anything about it as the police officers file out of the room. Captain Cialdini flashes them an ‘ok’ sign before leaving, with Leo fast on his heels.

Christophe laughs, clapping Yuuri on the back. “You look like you could do with a drink,” he quips.

Yuuri groans in long-suffering agreement. “Know any good places?”

* * *

_July 23, 2017  
The Inner Edge Bar  & Club, New York City_

Phichit does, in fact, know a good place. Said good place happens to be having karaoke night when they arrive, with off-key renditions of pop songs filling the air.

“I’m going to need at least two more drinks to be able to handle listening to this,” Christophe declares as he nurses an alarmingly blue cocktail. Yuuri rolls his eyes, sipping thoughtfully at his glass of wine.

“Maybe if you went for something stronger you’ll get drunker quicker,” Phichit declares cheerily, raising his tequila sunrise in the air. “Chon gâew!”

They clink their glasses together, and Yuuri finishes off his wine in one long pull. He then pops some peanuts into his mouth, shivering as the alcohol hits his system. “I just find it so… unsettling, you know?” he asks. “Here we are, drinking it up at a bar, while miles away from us our unsub is probably torturing and killing someone else.”

Phichit and Christophe both groan at him. “You say that _every_ time we go out in the middle of a case,” Phichit declares. “ _Every time_! It’s almost like clockwork! I’ve got you profiled as an anal-retentive no-fun-allowed kinda boss at this point, you know!”

“Yeah, maybe the unsub should pick up on that and off a couple killjoy bosses,” Christophe jokes. Yuuri sends him his best disapproving glare, which makes the other man wilt just slightly.

“Well, the point is, sometimes even _we_ need to just let loose and take a step back from our work,” Phichit reasons. “No need to bottle it all in until they’re _making_ us go see a therapist under threat of being pulled out of the field or something.”

Yuuri sighs. “I’ll just go get another drink,” he declares, and flags down a passing server.

Moments later, he’s got yet another glass of wine in his hands, while Phichit toys with the maraschino cherry garnishing his own drink. “You know,” he says as Yuuri idly swirls the Bordeaux around in his glass, “Viktor went to all that trouble to give you his number, maybe you should call and see if he’s available tonight.”

Yuuri’s glad he hadn’t taken a sip of his new drink just yet, because he would’ve spat it out all over Christophe. As it is, he only coughs wildly and turns to look incredulously at his friend. “What?” he demands.

“Invite Viktor over here,” Phichit says cheerily, as if he _didn’t_ know about Yuuri’s self-imposed ban on dating during cases. “I mean, it _is_ your night off.”

“Phichit, you know I don’t —”

“You’re _always_ on a case, Yuuri. The moment we get back to D.C. we’re going to get another case, and then another, and then another. It’ll never end, at least not until we retire or get killed or something, and by that time who knows where Mr Supermodel will be?”

“Probably off modelling distinguished watches and eyewear in black-and-white,” Christophe chips in. “Or Ralph Lauren’s line of polo shirts for affluent hot dads.”

Yuuri snorts at that. “I’ve only spoken to him informally once,” he points out.

“And that was when he gave you his number,” Phichit grins, swiping Yuuri’s phone from his pocket. “Ooh, you went and put it in your contacts already!”

“Just in case!” Yuuri exclaims, making a grab for the mobile, but Phichit dangles it out of his reach. Somehow, he still manages to send something while fighting Yuuri for control, because by the time Yuuri manages to wrest his phone from his friend, he’s already gotten a response.

_Hey, I’d love to! Where are you?_

“When I kill you, they’re never going to find your body,” Yuuri threatens.

“When they find my body, they’ll connect it to you easily because you just made a death threat,” retorts Phichit. “Also, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to threaten a federal agent.”

“I’m sure they’ll make an exception for an exasperated unit chief,” retorts Yuuri, but Phichit quickly leans forward and drops a pin in the chat, and Yuuri nearly screeches. “Take that _back_ ,” he demands.

“You’ll thank me at your wedding,” retorts Phichit. “Live a little!” And then he promptly switches over to the other side of the booth, bumping Christophe’s shoulder with a grin.

Viktor arrives half an hour and three more glasses of wine later, dressed in tight jeans and a striped blue shirt under a light grey jacket. “Agent Katsuki!” he chirps, tilting his head and smiling as he takes the empty seat in the booth next to Yuuri. “Thank you for inviting me to this!”

Yuuri feels his ears burning. “Well, it was mostly Phichit’s idea,” he says, nodding towards his partner and Christophe, who both have identical shit-eating grins on their faces.

“It’s karaoke night,” adds Phichit, jabbing a thumb over to a set of duetting twins. “You can do better than that, right?”

Viktor flags down a passing server, ordering another glass of wine. “Oh, of course,” he says, smiling. “Everyone fancies themselves a singer after they’ve got enough alcohol in them.”

“How about this?” asks Christophe. “Let’s split into teams and challenge each other at karaoke. Least in-tune pair buys the drinks.”

“That’s a lot at stake,” Yuuri remarks.

Christophe snorts. “It’s not fun without _something_ at stake,” he points out, and grabs one of the song request cards off the table and starts scribbling in it. “And Phichit and I are here to _win_.”

The rest of the evening passes in a blissed out, half-drunk blur of mingling voices and bodies. Yuuri has another glass of wine, but waves away Phichit’s offer of more. He wants to remember the night, however mortifying it had been for him at first to sing with Viktor’s eyes fixed firmly on him.

Eventually at some point in the night they overcome that embarrassment. As it turns out, he and Viktor make a surprisingly good duetting team; during their second song together, Yuuri notices that Viktor loves to harmonise along with him, even if the song doesn’t strictly require it. He also seems to know the lyrics well, considering that he spends most of his time looking at Yuuri instead of at the screen. Yuuri, on the other hand, keeps his gaze fixed firmly ahead, blaming the heat in his cheeks on the alcohol he’d been imbibing, instead of Viktor’s intense blue eyes on him.

“I think we’re going to win,” Phichit declares, when Yuuri returns to the table. “You’re very talented, Yuuri, but you can’t carry a tune in a bucket when you’re drunk.”

Yuuri squints at him. “It was _fine_ , and I’m _not_ drunk,” he complains.

“Chris spent time during his second PhD singing in an a capella group,” Phichit points out. “We’ve got this in the bag. You might as well give up.”

Yuuri shakes his head, as Viktor slides into the seat next to him with a book full of potential karaoke songs. “Which one should we pick?” he asks.

Yuuri tries to read the page, but some of the lines keep getting jumbled up. He takes a long sip of his water, eats a couple peanuts, and shakes his head. “You pick,” he offers. Viktor beams. Yuuri turns back to Phichit, resting his chin on his hands with a pout.

“It’s not fair that you picked karaoke night anyway,” he says, waving at Christophe as the man emerges from the bathroom. “I bet… I bet if this was a club night instead, I’d win.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Christophe agrees as he sits down next to Phichit, grinning. “Yuuri’s an excellent dancer, did you know?”

Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Really?” he asks.

“I used to do ballet when I was a kid,” Yuuri explains. “And I did some figure skating, too, but, you know — Southern California’s not exactly the best climate for that kind of sport.”

“You’re from Southern California?” asks Viktor, leaning in with obvious interest.

“Yeah, just a little north of LA.” Yuuri nods vehemently. “Hasetsu Beach gets all the cool parts of LA with half of the smog.”

“I’ve never been,” Viktor muses. “Is it nice there?”

“I miss it,” replies Yuuri. “Oh god, I’m drunk, aren’t I?” That last bit is directed at Phichit and Christophe, who are both staring at him as if he’s sprouted a second head.

“Usually he tells people about his hometown on the _third_ date,” Phichit says in a stage whisper to Viktor. “You must be special.”

Viktor preens just a little. Not that Yuuri notices, though. “I’m honoured,” the unfairly beautiful supermodel declares, before ordering another glass of wine as well as a basket of wings. That gets Phichit and Christophe to drink to his health, and Yuuri goes along with it, his stomach fluttering with warm feelings that he’s not quite sure what to do about.

He’s burning with a strange, traitorous need to be closer to Viktor, and as the night progresses, the rational side of his brain slowly loses ground to it. Viktor seems to be holding himself back, too, always reaching out for Yuuri but then stopping just short of actually touching him. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

Finally, they’re called up for their third and final song of the night, as the number of patrons at the bar has increased exponentially and there are no more open slots until two AM. A slow, dulcet melody begins to resound from the speakers, and Yuuri falls silent, not quite sure what song this is.

Viktor begins to croon into the microphone, his eyes never leaving Yuuri’s. Yuuri tries to go along with the song based on the lyrics on the screen, but he finds that he’s more fascinated by the way Viktor sways to the music, by the way he emotes along with the lyrics. This must be a song that means a lot to him, and Yuuri finds himself oddly touched that Viktor would want to serenade him with it.

For a brief, brilliant moment, as Viktor’s expression uplifts into rapturous ecstasy as he sings the high notes of the chorus, Yuuri wants to throw all of his old rules out the window. Wants to taste the wine clinging to Viktor’s lips, see what that pretty face looks like in the throes of passion. His hands clutch his own microphone, white-knuckled and uncertain. Next to him, Viktor sings on, unaware.

As the song ends, Viktor extends his hand to help Yuuri down the stage. His fingers are warm and slender, and Yuuri burns just from feeling them against his skin.

“I think we have to concede,” Phichit announces when they return to the table. “Viktor definitely makes up for Yuuri’s awful singing.”

“I think Yuuri sings well,” Viktor remarks.

Phichit laughs. “Usually,” he concedes. “But you haven’t heard him in the shower.”

Viktor’s expression at that looks like a cross between contemplative and sucker-punched, as if he’s trying to imagine Yuuri in the shower. Yuuri feels his cheeks heating up again, and he adjusts his glasses with a dirty glare towards Phichit.

“I think it’s time we got our last round and then called it a night?” asks Christophe. “Phi and I will be buying, of course, since we’ve ceded victory to you two.”

Yuuri asks for a shot of vodka for the road, and after he downs it he takes Viktor’s hand and leads him out of the bar onto the golden-tinted sidewalks. New York is still wide awake even at midnight, though this street is much more quiet than the rest of downtown. In the townhouses and apartments nearby, he can dimly make out the silhouettes of people going to bed.

“Isn’t it strange, how life goes on?” he asks suddenly. Viktor turns to look at him, his face beautifully enigmatic. Yuuri absently licks his lips as he fixates on Viktor’s own cupid’s bow. “Every day I go into the office and I have to look at those dead bodies and… I forget sometimes that other people don’t have to think about that.”

“I hope you won’t have to, for long,” Viktor replies solemnly. Yuuri laughs.

“It’s part of the job,” he says, shrugging. “I signed up for it when I joined the Bureau. It’s a small price to pay for everyone else to be safe.”

“By putting yourself in danger?” wonders Viktor, arching an eyebrow.

“Someone has to do it,” replies Yuuri.

Viktor smiles. “You’re so brave,” he compliments, and Yuuri’s stomach tugs at that. Viktor hadn’t even bothered to dress it up as banter this time, which makes it all the more stark, more pivotal.

He suddenly notices that they’d gotten closer. Viktor’s hand is on the small of his back, his blue eyes are darkened as he looks into Yuuri’s, and his breath is dancing across Yuuri’s cheeks. Yuuri wants the distance between them gone; he burns, with a sudden white-hot need, for Viktor’s lips upon his.

“Agent Katsuki, you’re unlike anyone I’ve ever…” Viktor breathes, and Yuuri’s heart thumps, intense yet hesitant, against his ribs.

“Yuuri,” he corrects quietly, and Viktor’s little smile at that is the most genuine Yuuri has seen on him all night.

He would’ve leaned up to close the distance then, but the door to the bar suddenly swings open with a loud ‘bang’, causing them to spring apart. Phichit and Christophe pour out onto the sidewalk, but when they see Yuuri and Viktor, they burst into giggles.

“Oops!” Phichit exclaims. “Should we give you two some space?”

Yuuri can’t help the curl of cold disappointment in his chest as he extricates himself from Viktor. “It’s fine,” he says, feeling the most sober he’s been all evening. “Let’s go home.”

“Where do you live, Viktor?” asks Christophe.

Viktor shrugs. “Near Stuyvesant,” he says vaguely.

“So then I guess we’re saying good night here?” asks Yuuri. At Viktor’s questioning glance, he explains, “we’re in Chinatown.”

“Oh.” Viktor bites his lip. “We could split a taxi?”

“Ah, we drove here,” Phichit says, gesturing over to their car, parked at a nearby meter. “Uncle Sam pays our parking fees.”

“Considering that he pays for _very_ little else, that’s just basic courtesy,” adds Christophe as they head off in the direction of the car. “We could take you back to yours?”

Viktor seems to contemplate it for a moment, before shaking his head and smiling. “I’m fine, thank you,” he says, and nods in the direction of the main street. “Thanks for tonight.”

Yuuri swallows. “Well, you have my personal number now,” he says drily. “Congratulations.”

Viktor laughs. “My greatest achievement,” he agrees, and reaches out, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear. “Good night, Yuuri.”

Yuuri likes how his name sounds on Viktor’s lips. “Good night, Viktor,” he agrees, before turning to follow Phichit and Christophe to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Graphic depiction of a tax audit, references to a sugar relationship
> 
> Wrath: We call this the meme chapter.  
> Lily: Special thanks to Amarok from Home Rink for cluing us in to the gory details of a tax audit! We are a little more traumatised by it now, thanks. This chapter is also rated M for Adult Content, aka taxes.  
> Wrath: Aka noncon dubcon getting fucked by the government.


	4. Serenade For Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings at the end of this chapter.

_August 2nd, 2017  
Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City_

“I think we can safely say the unsub’s back on track,” Yuuri remarks as he bends down to examine the body laid out on the tarpaulin. He straightens up, raising an eyebrow at Leo. “How did the crime scene techs find this one?”

“Sitting on a chair on the stage,” says Leo, nodding towards the stage door of the Cherry Lane Theatre just a couple feet from them. “The _And There Were None_ crew members that found him were… stunned, to say the least.”

“They spend so much time pretending to murder each other on stage, but they’re unequipped to see it happen for real,” Yuuri says, nodding as he looks towards the people talking to other police officers while wrapped in blankets.

“You think it’s an interesting deviation into the theatre world?” wonders Leo.

Yuuri shakes his head. “Lilia Baranovskaya did costume design. It’s not much of a jump.”

“You think she has something to do with this?”

“No.” Yuuri smiles. “Her lawyer was able to give me receipts for all of her alibis on the nights of the other disappearances and body dumps.”

Leo nods, and then goes over to help his new deputy with the statements. Yuuri turns back to the body, carefully examining the cuts around the neck and jaw.

“Vocal cords,” says Christophe, appearing at Yuuri’s elbow. “The unsub pulled out his vocal cords.”

Yuuri nods, staring intently down at the John Doe and turning him over gingerly. The outfit he’s wearing appears to be a dark indigo suit studded with rhinestones, with mesh panelling and elaborate jewels placed in a scrolling design along the side and back.

“A custom-designed outfit for a stage début,” he remarks. “The unsub wants him in the spotlight. Wants to be in the spotlight, too, but as the person who put him there. The vocal cords, though — clearly something about Mr Doe’s voice did not sit well with him.” He looks up at Christophe. “How did the unsub get access to the theatre?”

“He used the victim’s keys, apparently.” Phichit materialises next to them with a grim expression. “Yoon-min Kang. He was a sound technician here. I suppose they didn’t think to change the locks after his abduction.”

“Which means it probably didn’t look like an abduction,” Yuuri points out. “Do any of the crew members remember much about him?”

“They said he quit unexpectedly, family emergency in South Korea,” replies Phichit.

Yuuri nods again. “Mr Kang was staged with an awful lot more effort than the others. Compared to a dumpster, a park, and the Hudson River, the theatre is a much more difficult location to put a corpse. The unsub did so because they were _able_ to, without it being traced back to them, and because…” he pauses, frowning. “Mr Kang _earned_ this sort of backhanded gesture. The unsub knew enough about him to set this up, which suggests they might have at least stalked Mr Kang, or gotten to know him before revealing their true intentions.”

“Do you think any of Mr Kang’s coworkers would’ve seen our unsub?” asks Christophe.

“Can’t hurt to ask,” replies Phichit, nodding back towards Leo and his new deputy.

So Yuuri rolls off his gloves and goes over to where the cast and crew are gathered. A couple more people have arrived and are all gathered around Leo, whispering among themselves. When Yuuri arrives they all turn and quiet down, especially as Yuuri flashes his badge.

“Can anyone here give us more information about Mr Kang?” he asks.

One of the cast members steps forward, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. “He’s my ex,” she states, to increased whispers from the rest of the crowd. “Or, uh. Was.”

And then she breaks into tears.

* * *

Five minutes, ten boxes of of Kleenex, and a glass of water later, Heather Klein, the leading lady of the production, looks up at them from where she’s perched on the edge of the couch in the stage manager’s office, and says:

“It was a brief affair, but I really did have feelings for him.”

Yuuri has the distinct feeling that she’s quoting a play. He raises an eyebrow.

Heather slumps. “Okay,” she concedes. “It was mostly physical. And most of my feelings were about his dick.” Something must have shown on Yuuri’s face, because she suddenly becomes slightly indignant. “Look, it was _a really nice dick_ , okay?”

Christophe bursts into a fit of hysterical coughing. Yuuri steps on his foot. Then he steps on Phichit’s too, for good measure. “Besides his dick, what can you tell us about him as a person?”

“He was the sound guy, but he’d always had dreams of getting onto the other side of the sound booth,” she replies. “I went to a couple small gigs he did for jazz clubs and stuff, he was a sort of smoky cabaret baritone kind of guy — really nice in bed, but not what our director was looking for.” She pauses. “I suppose he was using me, since I play Vera Claythorne, but… we were both using each other in the end, weren’t we?”

Phichit pats her shoulder. “When did the two of you become exes?” he asks.

“About a couple weeks before tech,” Heather says. “He said he’d found someone else, someone he called… Hyung? He was always smiling at his phone, talking about how nice this ‘Hyung’ was, how nice their dates were, how nice his _dick_ was —”

Yuuri’s hand is halfway up his face before he remembers he shouldn’t openly facepalm in front of a witness. So he adjusts his glasses instead and clears his throat. “Do you know anything else about Hyung besides _his_ dick?” he asks, hoping his voice doesn’t sound nearly as long-suffering as he feels.

“Uh no, I don’t,” she says. “He never showed up at the theatre. For a while we thought he was just making him up, but then…” she trails off, frowning. “Actually, I think I’ve seen him once. He swung by in a taxi to pick Yoon-min up for a date on his last day with us. I remember Yoon-min was so excited about some seafood restaurant that they were going to…”

Yuuri leans in. “What did he look like?” he asks.

Heather frowns. “Tall. I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but he had light hair. I guess he was Korean, though? If his name’s Hyung?”

“No, that could just be a term of endearment,” Phichit cuts in.

“Oh,” says Heather. “I’m sorry, then. He had some stubble on his chin, I think? But it was pretty dark, so it could’ve been shadows or something.” She pauses. “Actually —” she squints a little at Christophe, “he looked a little like you.”

Yuuri exchanges a glance with Phichit, who has suddenly gone uncharacteristically pale.

“Are you sure?” Phichit asks.

She shakes her head. “The build’s a bit different. I mean, I couldn’t really tell because he was sitting in a car.”

“And when did you guys find out that Mr Kang had quit?”

“Maybe… about two weeks after? He hadn’t shown up to work for that time, so we were getting a little concerned, but then the director got the email about an unexpected family emergency in South Korea, and how he’d had to fly out that last evening and still hasn’t been able to return. None of us had any idea that he was, you know…” Words seem to fail her for a moment; she blows her nose with another tissue, and then sighs. “I can’t believe the last thing I told him was that I was glad that he was happy and that I was going to miss his dick.”

“There are worse last things to tell people, I guess,” Yuuri reasons.

“Like fighting with them, or anything that makes you blame yourself for them running into the arms of a serial killer,” adds Phichit.

Yuuri frowns a little. Phichit still hasn’t regained the colour in his face. He makes a mental note to ask him about it later; the middle of an interview is not the best time to be discussing Seung-gil.

Heather, on the other hand, is now tearing her tissue into confetti. “I thought that he’d just spent these past few months with his family or something,” she admits. “I never knew… oh my god. Did Hyung do that to him?”

“It’s likely,” says Yuuri. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Ms Klein.”

“I wish I could help you more,” she admits. “I mean, I suppose you might be able to find Yoon-min’s phone or something? He texted Hyung a lot.”

“We’ll try to trace his number, but it’s likely his phone’s been disposed of already,” says Yuuri. “Can you give us the exact date of when he disappeared?”

“Oh, yeah. It was a week after opening night. I think Hyung was actually invited to that. Yoon-min claimed he showed up, but had to leave early because of a headache or something. I remember thinking that he was clearly being strung along by some jerkwad at the time, but…” she shrugs.

“The date,” reminds Yuuri.

“March 15th,” replies Heather.

“Thank you.” Yuuri leans back. “If we have more questions for you, what would be a good way to contact you?”

“I have a card,” she says, and fishes out her phone from her bra, taking out a card from the holder on the case. “Here you go, Agent…”

“Katsuki,” replies Yuuri, pocketing her card and handing her one of his own. “If anything else comes to mind, feel free to call this number.”

“You got it,” she says, her gaze aimed downwards, and Yuuri has the distinct uncomfortable feeling that she’s fixating on his crotch. He quickly strides over to the door and opens it for her, and she steps past him with a sunny wave and a wink.

Yuuri breathes a sigh of relief as soon as he closes the door. “Well,” he says. “A nice dick. Not something we wanted to know about the unsub, but we got it anyway.”

“Yes, let’s just line all of our suspects up and have them drop trou,” jokes Phichit. There’s a little colour seeping back into his cheeks, but he still looks slightly shell-shocked.

“We can narrow it even further,” Christophe points out. “Find all of my evil doppelgangers in New York City. Because apparently that’s what the unsub looks like.”

“If so, then…” Yuuri looks sidelong at Phichit. “How long has Seung-gil been missing, then?”

“Three weeks,” Phichit replies with a sigh. “Still, some of the other victims have been kept for years. As long as Seung-gil can play along with the unsub’s fantasy, he’s probably safe, right?”

“Well, if you only mean ‘alive’, then yeah, he’s totally safe,” Christophe reasons. “He’s probably drugged to hell on ketamine right now.”

Phichit, somehow, manages to get even more pale at that. “Shit,” he suddenly says. “He might be dead, then.” At an alarmed look from the others, he adds, “Seung-gil’s diabetic.”

“We need to tell Leo,” Yuuri declares, and leads the way out of the office.

* * *

_August 3rd, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

Leo, upon hearing the news that the unsub most likely has kidnapped Detective Lee, immediately orders his deputy to finish taking down statements and rushes with them back to the precinct office.

“Well, if Seung-gil’s already dead, then wouldn’t we have found his body?” he asks on the way over, as they sit in the perpetual gridlock of New York traffic.

“Maybe the unsub decided to quietly bury him,” Phichit suggests.

“That’s not his signature,” Yuuri points out. “Especially not for someone who had been tied to the investigation, like Detective Lee. He’d have wanted to make a statement with the body, even if he didn’t kill him with anything more gruesome than extra ketamine.”

“As long as we don’t have a body, we can assume that Seung-gil’s still alive,” Leo declares, tapping rhythmically and a bit nervously at the wheel of his squad car. “Which also means that the unsub has access to medicine for diabetes.”

“That confirms our suspicion that he’s got medical training,” agrees Christophe. “Maybe when we get back to the precinct I can check hospital records, see if there’s been any doctors who have been acting suspicious?”

“You could also see if there’s been any reported cases of insulin and ketamine theft,” Yuuri adds. “People steal drugs from hospitals all the time.”

However, once they make it back to the precinct, Captain Cialdini stops them just before they head to Leo’s desk. “There’s someone waiting for you in the conference room,” he says. “Cao Bin’s sister has some information.”

Cao Bin’s sister, Hua, has her eyes fixed intently on the wood grain of the table even as she picks at the rim of her water cup. “I’m sorry I didn’t come forward about this earlier,” she begins, which causes Leo’s brows to furrow.

“What is it, Ms Bin?” he asks. She worries at one of her braids and then looks up at him with tear-filled brown eyes.

“A couple days before he disappeared, I overheard my brother having an argument on his fire escape.”

“An argument,” states Leo. Hua’s eyes dart between the three agents, before she nods again, and goes back to picking at her cup.

“I didn’t know what they were talking about, but my brother seemed agitated. Said he didn’t want anything to do with the other guy, and that if he showed up here again he was calling the police. I saw the other guy leave from another window, but I didn’t think too much of it until, well. Until CaoCao disappeared.”

“But why didn’t you tell the police about this earlier, Ms Bin?” asks Yuuri.

“Because — because CaoCao was an addict,” replies Hua, her face taking on a distinct shade of pink. “We — we really don’t talk about it much, in our family. He started after he was forced to retire from competitive skating, and only got into rehab and counselling a couple years ago.”

Yuuri hums. “Could you get us the names of the people in his group?”

Hua chews at her lips. “No,” she admits. “But I know they meet every Thursday at the Chinese Community Center of Flushing. His sponsor’s name is Annette Taylor, if that helps.”

“We’ll have to interview them as part of our investigation,” Yuuri warns. “We do need to cover our bases.”

Hua grimaces. “I don’t want to cause trouble by getting you guys involved,” she admits, “but given all of the bodies that have dropped since then…” she trails off, sighing. “I’m sorry it took me so long to disclose this.”

“What was your brother taking?” asks Yuuri.

Hua looks down at her cup. “Ketamine,” she whispers. “At rock bottom he’d spend his entire month’s paycheck on it. Nearly lost his job at the rink when he called in high.”

Yuuri nods. “And did you recognise the man he was talking to?”

“It was Michele Crispino,” Hua replies without hesitation. “Everyone in our part of town knows who he is — it’d be stupid _not_ to, given who he runs with.”

Phichit nods. “I’ll check with Guang-Hong in vice, see if he still keeps tabs on Crispino,” he suggests.

“If you can find him, bring him in,” says Yuuri, casting a sidelong glance at Hua. “Thank you for your time, Ms Bin.”

* * *

_August 3rd, 2017  
FBI Field Office, New York City_

The reports for Hyun-min Han come in a day later.

“As we suspected, he was dumped farther upriver,” says Christophe as he shows Yuuri the folder containing the final autopsy report. “The water in his lungs contains particulates from Bear Mountain Bridge, which is roughly forty miles upstream from where he was found. There was some sediment in his ears, too, that corroborates that.”

“So we weren’t meant to find this one?” wonders Yuuri, looking up from the autopsy. “I mean, given that he wasn’t displayed and everything. If it weren’t for the fact that Mr Han fits the victim profile and had ketamine in his system, I’d consider this one a copycat.”

“It could be,” Phichit points out. “Depends on how important displaying the body is to our unsub’s signature —”

“It might not be,” says Yuuri. “We’ve established that this unsub does not derive pleasure from killing. All the deaths are impersonal: no lingering, no overkill. He stops the moment they’re dead.”

“Then why cut the lips at all?” wonders Phichit.

Yuuri gapes, at a loss for words. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Maybe it’s his trophy. A personal trophy for every victim, based on something they prized in life? Maybe Mr Han took pride in his lips, so the unsub cut them off.”

“Same with Mr Kang’s vocal cords, then?” Phichit asks, tapping thoughtfully at his chin.

“I suppose?” Yuuri shrugs. “Ms Klein said he wanted to be onstage, and that he sang. You don’t do that if you don’t have pride in your voice.”

“You’d think the unsub would’ve cut off other parts of him, given how much Ms Klein talked about them,” Christophe says, grinning. Yuuri shoots him what he hopes is his best death glare. Thankfully, Christophe is still susceptible to it, and flinches.

Phichit gets their attention by clearing his throat. “About the piercings — they’ve been closed for almost a year, based on the level of healing in the scar tissue.”

“That’s… ludicrous.” Christophe replies, brows furrowed. “Usually people who kill surrogates according to a fantasy don’t take more than one victim at a time. Remember when we worked on the Lancaster case? He only took one family at a time as he tried to reenact his childhood trauma of finding his own family dead.”

“I mean, it is pretty complicated to try and kill more than one family at a time,” Phichit says drily.

“Or the Malcolm case, where she was transforming women into the dolls that she lost,” Yuuri muses. “She only took new victims after the old ones died, to replace them.”

“See what I mean?” Christophe shakes his head. “I don’t get this guy. He can keep multiple victims at the same time, and it doesn’t invalidate his fantasy? Why does he add to his collection, then? Why keep them for years at a time?”

“Maybe he wants a harem,” Phichit suggests. “A harem full of Yuuri Katsukis. That seems like a nightmare to _me_ , but his kink is not my kink, and that’s okay!” He pauses. “No, it’s actually not, given that he’s been kidnapping and torturing people, but —”

“Can we _stop_ saying that the unsub is fixated on me?” demands Yuuri. “It’s just a coincidence.”

“Right, a coincidence that _my_ evil twin is collecting copies of my _boss_ ,” Christophe points out sourly. His tone softens though, when he looks back at Phichit. “Why couldn’t he have gone for _you_? If he wants to pin these crimes on me, at least keep me in _character_!”

“Well, I see how it is, Christophe,” Yuuri says, voice chilly, “I’ll remember that comment, should people that resemble Phichit ever go missing.”

“ _See!_ This is why! When’s the last time we’ve seen you take a joke?”

Yuuri looks at him with enough exasperation to mortify an elephant. “That _was_ a joke.”

“Ha, _ha_ ,” mutters Christophe. “I’m dying of laughter here.”

Phichit reaches over and pats his arm. “That’s the spirit!” he chirps.

Yuuri vaguely wonders if he could appeal to Section Chief Hotchner for an _actual_ set of five-year-olds to work with. At least Yuuko and Takeshi’s triplets _listen_ to him.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he says loudly, clicking his nails against the desk to get their attention, “it’s obvious that our unsub is an exception to most patterns of serial killer behaviour.” He looks at all of the missing persons that have recently been flagged as correlated to cold cases. “He keeps multiple victims for years at a time, and is constantly adding to his collection. The fantasy never runs out, and until he started openly displaying bodies, he’s been able to stay off our radar. This leads me to think that the transformation is more important than the death. Whoever is the object of his fixation is only good to him if they reciprocate his feelings, and they have to be alive to do that.”

“So he couldn’t just stalk that person on Facebook like a regular human being?” wonders Christophe.

“Not everyone has Facebook,” Yuuri reminds him.

“Yeah, like _you_ ,” Phichit adds.

“For good reason, _clearly_ ,” Yuuri retorts, with a pointed stare at the autopsy in Phichit’s hands.

“I wonder what comes up when we google your name,” Christophe says, already pulling his phone out.

Yuuri resists the urge to facepalm, but then gives in, considering that his colleagues have clearly run down another rabbit hole he hadn’t even wanted them to poke at in the first place. “Nothing, hopefully,” he says. “Maybe my Twitter. Or maybe you’ll only get results for that famous skater that has my name.”

“ _I_ run your Twitter, so it doesn’t count,” Phichit says smugly.

“Actually, neither of them are the first entry,” Christophe says, curiosity tinting his tone, “Some blog about you comes up instead.”

“A blog? What?” Phichit looks at Yuuri, scandalized. “I didn’t know you had a blog.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I didn’t know _I_ had a blog.”

Christophe snorts at both of them. “Apparently, it’s by someone named Kenjirou Minami.”

Yuuri takes the phone from Christophe, frowning as he scrolls through the posts. “He’s been keeping tabs on the investigation,” he says. “ _Really_ close tabs.”

“How close?” asks Phichit, trying to peer over Yuuri’s shoulders.

“There’s pictures of me coming out of Cherry Lane yesterday,” Yuuri says, showing him the post. Phichit’s eyebrows raise.

“Think we should look into this guy?” he asks.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” Yuuri points out. “We did say in the profile that the unsub would be following our every move.”

Phichit snorts. “Plus, it’s pretty obvious he’s obsessed with you. Your tag in his tag cloud is at like, max size.”

“That’s what he said,” Christophe chimes in, earning himself another glare.

“Are you _sure_ you’re a real doctor?” demands Yuuri. Christophe at least has the sensibility to look offended at that.

“Excuse me, I worked _hard_ for my Ph.Ds,” he says, though given how brightly Phichit flushes at that, Yuuri has reason to suspect there’s a double entendre in there.

For the sake of his own sanity, he leaves it at that.

They spend the afternoon taking down calls from the tipline, interviewing the members of Cao Bin’s sobriety counselling group, and answering questions from the press hounds and the families of the missing and bereaved. Dealing with Yoon-min Kang’s family in particular gives Phichit a pained expression, but when Yuuri asks him about it, Phichit only beams and says, “It’s nothing, it’s just always tough to tell a mother that her son is dead.”

“You sure it’s nothing? You looked terrible yesterday when Ms Klein mentioned what the unsub looked like.”

Phichit sighs, taking Yuuri by the arm and leading him to the kitchen, where he starts to fiddle with the kettle for a cup of tea. “Seung-gil’s parents called,” he says. “Earlier this morning, when I was on my way to Emil’s office for the report. Apparently they’d just moved to Seattle last month, and they were worried because Seung-gil hadn’t called them in weeks.”

“What did you tell them?” asks Yuuri, raising an eyebrow.

“The truth,” replies Phichit. At Yuuri’s incredulous stare, he adds, “They deserved to know. And we were close, so… I figured that it would be better if they heard it from me than a stranger from the NYPD.”

“Okay,” agrees Yuuri. “Well, you know, if you need anything —”

“I’m fine,” says Phichit. “I just. Want to catch the son of a bitch who took him, you know? But this unsub is good. We only know what he lets us know, and we can’t just react to him forever. We have to make him react to us at some point, right?”

“But we don’t even have any good suspects yet,” Yuuri points out. “Guang-Hong’s still working on getting in contact with Michele Crispino, right? That’s the only real lead we have right now, and the latest autopsy report only shows that we have to expand our search for the unsub’s holding area out to the Harriman State Park area.”

“ _Speaking_ of parks, though,” Phichit says, clearly wanting to change the subject, “your boyfriend —”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Yuuri snaps.

“I didn’t even say his name,” Phichit remarks, raising an eyebrow. “Do you _want_ him to be?”

“What are we, middle schoolers? Are you going to ask me if I _like_ like him now?”

“I dunno, do you?”

“Do you _like_ like Seung-gil?”

The kettle starts to whistle as Phichit’s expression stiffens, much like all the corpses they’ve been investigating. “That was a low blow, Yuuri,” he says, “but for the record, we _were_ dating. We didn’t think that we’d do well with a long-distance relationship though, which is why we broke it off when I transferred to D.C.” He pauses. “So yeah, I ‘like liked’ him. At least I have the balls to admit it.”

“Sorry.” The word comes almost automatically. “We’re kind of on edge, especially in light of, uh, recent developments.”

Phichit nods once, accepting the apology as he takes the kettle and pours himself his tea. “Anyway, as I was saying. You going to do anything with Viktor’s number? He’s seen you drunk already.”

“I wasn’t drunk. I remembered everything.” Yuuri feels his collar getting warm just at the memory of Viktor’s lips only breaths away from his own. “But it’d be unprofessional —”

“It’d be unprofessional if he was _actually_ involved with the case,” Phichit points out, wagging his finger at Yuuri. “He’s not a witness or a suspect, so it’s not like we’re sending you out to be a honeypot or something.”

“That’s not a very convincing argument, Phichit,” Yuuri says, pushing up his glasses.

“Yeah, because there’s more to being a good honeypot than a nice ass,” retorts Phichit, elbowing him good-naturedly. “But listen, Yuuri, we’re gonna be here for a long time. You _do_ deserve to have some moments of happiness. Not everyone lands a model for a boyfriend when they first move to New York; you should take advantage of it!”

“You want me to go on a date with someone who’s on a first-name basis with _Armani_ ,” deadpans Yuuri.

“Yeah, maybe Uncle Sam will lose you to the siren call of Armani,” jokes Phichit. “I mean, the paycheck will probably be a lot nicer.”

“I’m not an Armani person,” Yuuri says, gesturing to his suit. “You know I got this on sale at Uniqlo.”

A pained expression crosses Phichit’s face, and he sighs into his tea. “Maybe Viktor will cure you.”

“Of what?”

“Of your bad fashion choices!”

“Hey! Uniqlo is practical and affordable!”

Phichit shoves a finger in Yuuri’s face. “Yuuri. You might be my boss, but you are _also_ the one meant to be sleeping on the sofa. I’m not trading places with you tonight if you don’t go out and relax.”

Yuuri gives him a long-suffering sigh. “What do you want from me.”

“No, no. What does _Viktor_ want from you? A text, probably. It’s been weeks. So you should text him, ask him if he’s available. Apologise if you have to, and if he’s free, you offer to spend some time with him. As a human being, not Agent Yuuri Katsuki.”

Yuuri sighs at that, raising both of his hands in a placating gesture. “Fine,” he concedes. “I surrender.”

* * *

_August 3rd, 2017  
Central Park, New York City_

To his surprise, Viktor responds almost immediately to his text, informing him that he’d just gotten off a plane from Paris but he’d be ‘delighted’ to ‘go somewhere’ with Yuuri. In a fit of panic, Yuuri asks around the field office for date ideas. Much to his embarrassment, everyone seems to have some sort of input — and then some sort of speculation as to who his partner (or partners) is. One guess — by a visiting Captain Celestino, no less — that he was in a polyamorous relationship with Christophe and Phichit almost makes him walk into a glass door.

He’s saved, however, by Viktor texting him asking if he’d like to catch tonight’s production of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ in Central Park. With great relief, he agrees readily, before falling into a second panic about what he should wear.

 _See you at 8PM!_ Viktor chirps, adding on a smiling emoji, and Yuuri clutches his phone, trying valiantly to ignore the snickering from Christophe and Phichit as they pretend to examine the evidence yet again.

Somehow by 8, he’s managed to dress himself down into a pair of jeans and a button-down, taking along a grey cardigan for the evening breeze. Viktor meets him by the statue of Romeo and Juliet, dressed just as casually.

(Yuuri suspects, though, that these ‘casual’ pieces would still cost more than his entire wardrobe put together.)

“How did you get such good tickets?” he asks instead, looking at their seat assignments with quiet awe.

“I’m good friends with one of the box office managers at the Delacorte,” replies Viktor sweetly, offering his arm. “Shall we?”

Yuuri nods. Viktor, true to his word, shoots off a friendly wave at someone in the box office as they pass through the gates into the amphitheatre, joining the crowd trying to find their seats in the slowly-gathering dusk.

The stage comes alight with brightly-coloured scenery and even more brightly-dressed characters. Viktor’s tickets had been good enough to get them close to the action, so Yuuri can see the actors’ faces as they move across the stage. The scenes are lush with foliage, the characters bright and comedic. Each of the fairies move with whimsy and grace, while the four young lovers stumble around the edges of Titania and Oberon’s marital spat, inadvertently falling prey to Puck’s mischief.

It’s been a long while since Yuuri had last seen a production of _Midsummer_ ; the last time he’d done so, he had actually been Peaseblossom in a children’s ballet production back home in Hasetsu Beach. All he really remembers about that time in his life is the fact that the actor playing Puck had the most beautiful hair that he’d seen, all long and platinum and shining under the stage lights, and he had loved the older boy’s graceful movements and body language.

There’s something similarly puckish about Viktor, too, though the model’s hair is shorter and his expression is currently pensive in the glow of the stage lights. Viktor’s beauty is just as otherworldly, just as fey — Yuuri’s a little terrified of breathing too hard and finding that the man had only been a mirage, a delusion created by his lonely, lovelorn mind from the ashes of childhood crushes and dreams.

Viktor’s hand inches closer to his, his warmth almost a scorching brand even with the faintest of distance between their fingers. Yuuri’s heart beats an erratic staccato as he exhales and closes the distance, and Viktor’s lips twitch as he turns to look at Yuuri.

Yuuri wants, oh god he _wants_. It’s almost as if the fairies had cast the love-in-idleness into his own eyes, because every part of his body feels like it’s on fire, and Viktor is simultaneously water and fuel, sating and burning in equal measure. He leans forward, resting his head on Viktor’s shoulder, feeling oddly proud at the slight hitch in VIktor’s breath when he does so.

The rest of the play passes by largely unmarked; Yuuri hadn’t been paying that much attention in the first place.

After the show, they walk through the Shakespeare Garden before they hit the transverse out of the park. Central Park is not always an ideal hangout location at night, but in the summertime things are a little more subdued, with only the occasional drunkard staggering by to pass out on one of the park benches before the NYPD come along to turf them out.

“I always think about how Demetrius got the short end of the stick in that play,” Yuuri says, as they make their way across the street towards the Natural History museum. Viktor hums questioningly, as if encouraging him to continue, so Yuuri does. “The only reason everything ends neatly is because he’s been drugged to stay in love with Helena; he didn’t make that change of his own free will. I wonder what’d happen if he comes to his senses and finds that he’s married to someone he doesn’t actually love.”

Viktor hums. “Maybe he’ll have grown to love Helena for herself by then,” he reasons. “All he needed was that first little impetus.”

“But… a love potion? _Really_?” Yuuri shakes his head. “I’d think that’d do a disservice to Helena’s own charms, if she can only keep the man of her dreams by drugging him.”

“He was supposed to have loved her _before_ the play, though,” Viktor points out. “It was just a reversion to how things should have been, before he strayed and fell for Hermia.”

“I don’t know,” admits Yuuri. “I pity Helena, honestly. She has to live the rest of her life with a man she knows, deep down, would actually hate her if it weren’t for the love potion that’s blinded him. If I were in her shoes, I’d be waiting for the other shoe to drop every single day.”

“I think I pity Bottom more, though,” Viktor says, as they step into a Shake Shack near the museum, still open at this hour with the smell of custard and greasy burgers. The line inside is sizeable — a lot of other playgoers seem to have had a similar idea — but they patiently wait their turn all the same. “He genuinely doesn’t realise how much of an ass he is, even when he’s not running around in a donkey head.”

Yuuri laughs at that, causing Viktor to grin triumphantly. “I suppose, but then I’d have to pity Titania, because she _slept_ with that ass,” he says.

Viktor snickers. “Would _you_ do it?”

“You’d have to pay me.” They step up to the counter, placing an order for a milkshake and a small carton of fries. Yuuri pays this time, and Viktor’s cheeks flush pink as they head to the counter by the window, looking out at the other people walking along the sidewalk at this hour. “I’d have to be just as blinded as Titania to willingly sleep with someone like Bottom.”

“What, a self-conceited ass?” asks Viktor, his eyes sparkling in amusement.

Yuuri laughs. “Let’s put it that way,” he agrees, and moments later their shake and fries come, so they leave it at that.

Afterwards, they head to the metro together. Viktor has to transfer to another line three stops before Yuuri’s own, but for the seven stops they share, they hold hands. The carriage is full of young couples and groups heading to and from nights out on the town; for the first time in a very long time, Yuuri feels like he actually fits into his surroundings.

“I had fun,” he says, as the train pulls out of the 23rd street stop, hurtling towards the next. Viktor will be getting off there, and Yuuri’s half-surprised by how soon it is. “I haven’t had fun like that in a while, I think.”

“Not even at karaoke?” asks Viktor, already getting up. He holds onto the railing still, legs gently pressing against Yuuri’s knees. Yuuri opens his legs just slightly to let Viktor slot in closer, thrilling at how the other man licks his lips in response.

“That wasn’t really — you know. A date.”

“So we’re dating?” Viktor’s positively beaming. Yuuri swallows.

“I guess?” he asks. “We spent time together, just the two of us, doing an activity we liked. I think that counts as a date, but then again, it’s been a while since I read the manual.”

Viktor laughs, bright and beautiful in the flickering dimness of the train carriage. “Does that mean you’d like a second date?” he asks.

Yuuri nods. “Very much,” he admits, and Viktor reaches out to cup his face. For a brief moment, Yuuri’s heart freezes at the possibility that Viktor’s going to kiss him in front of everyone, but then the train lurches into the stop, and the doors slide open, and Viktor takes his hand instead, pressing a kiss to the knuckles like he’s some Victorian gentleman bidding his lover goodnight.

The only thing keeping Yuuri from succumbing to the vapours is, of course, the fact that he’d be doing it in a New York subway train, and that’d be the peak of indignity. So he smiles instead, and waves Viktor goodbye, blowing him a kiss out the scratched and dirtied window as the train pulls him down the platform and out of sight.

The last thing he sees before the darkness of the tunnels is Viktor clutching at his chest on the platform, a beacon of gold against fluorescent lights.

* * *

_August 11th, 2017  
Morningside Park, New York City_

“This is a perfect example of what I meant when I said that the unsub feels something for his victims,” Yuuri says a couple days later, looking anywhere but the John Doe’s painted face.

They’ve been called out to this park in response to a report from a dog-walker about a sleeping man under a tree. Only he hadn’t been sleeping, he’d been dead. The dew clings to his short black hair, and he wears nothing but a T-shirt and jeans. Granted, very expensive ones, but plain clothes nonetheless.

“Yuuri,” Phichit says, his voice low, “Are you very sure that you want to discount the idea that the unsub might be fixated on you specifically?”

It’s hard for Yuuri to say no this time, not when he’s looking at the wooden expression the man wears on a wooden mask covered with makeup. He looks like a sleeping theatre actor, the lead in a macabre play about Yuuri’s life, forced to don a mask covered with makeup to look like him. There are even false eyelashes.

Blood spots the back of the mask, trails visibly down the neck, stains the collar.

Nausea hits Yuuri like a car crash, but he doesn’t throw up despite ending up with his knees on the ground in sorrowful penance to the dead man. He can’t throw up, or the unsub will have won against him — after all, this is just a campaign to make Yuuri too repulsed to hunt him down. It’s a mockery of Yuuri, nothing more.

(The alternative is too terrifying to consider.)

“Yuuri?” Phichit’s voice swims into his awareness. “Yuuri —”

Yuuri holds up a hand to allay his friend’s concern. “Just — I just need a moment,” the words come out in half-choked wheezes. “Are they done with the pictures yet?” He refuses to look up still.

Phichit rests a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, but says nothing, just leaves it a light presence for him. A few minutes and countless camera shutter clicks later, Phichit says, “They’re done now.”

“Tell them to remove the mask.”

He can hear the cringe in Phichit’s voice, but Phichit relays it nonetheless. Thankfully, no one tries to approach Yuuri and inquire about his health — it’s already mortifying enough that he’s like this at a crime scene. “Oh my god,” Phichit gasps, tightening his grip on Yuuri’s shoulder in reaction to whatever he sees.

Yuuri looks up, and this time it’s much easier to stifle the urge to vomit. He gets to his feet without Phichit’s assistance, and moves back towards the body. Somehow, it’s easier to look at a skinless face than it is to look at a facsimile of himself on a mask.

He breathes silently, gaze fixed on the corpse. From the jaw up to the hairline, there is only a mess of muscles visible, all long-coagulated over with blood. Not even the eyelids had been spared: the dead man’s eyeballs lie exposed to the elements, the pupils clouded over and aimed towards the ground.

“John Doe messed up badly,” he murmurs, his words sounding distant even to himself, “to the point that he didn’t deserve to have his own face anymore. The unsub took it off, piece by piece, and then put a different face on him.” Crouching, he gestures to a long, smooth slit just under the corpse’s jaw, cutting through the carotid artery. “His throat was slit.”

“COD’s exsanguination,” Christophe says. “But what’s the point of of the skinning?”

“Like I said, he didn’t deserve his face.” Yuuri says. “The unsub skinned it off him antemortem like all of the other mutilations. But the victim survived that, so he slit his throat.” Yuuri closes his eyes and breathes again, adjusting his glasses as he stands up. “Then he dressed him in clothes like the rest, but nothing so nice as Baranovskaya’s or Popovich’s designs. He didn’t deserve to be adorned in death either.”

“I thought you said that he took features that the victims prized as trophies?” Christophe asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. “This one was was an exception. See how the coagulation is all uneven? The unsub took off his skin piece by piece. If he’d been looking for a trophy he’d probably would’ve wanted to take it all off evenly, and as intact as possible. No, this screams of punishment.”

Christophe hums consideringly. “You think he got a kick out of it?

“No,” Yuuri says, shaking his head at the same time. “He did it to teach him a lesson, but it’s like how a parent hates punishing a child. It’s for the victim’s own good.” He gestures at the viscera. “There’s a lot of capillaries in the face, but not enough that he would have died quickly. The unsub wanted him to suffer, but _not_ to that extent, so he killed him to put him out of his misery. He took no joy in this.”

He turns around to face Christophe and Phichit. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder, almost as if forming a barrier between him and the crowd that has gathered. He won’t thank them for it, because they already know how he feels about this.

He takes a sigh instead. “The mask?” he asks, gesturing at the corpse behind him. “You can move the body now!” he calls to the crime scene techs, and they scurry in quickly, making sure to drape a cloth over the remains as soon as possible.

One of the techs comes up to him with the mask held gingerly in an evidence bag. Yuuri barely restrains his urge to flinch at its appearance as he takes the bag, careful not to smudge the makeup. Even alone, the details of the mask unnerves him with their uncanny familiarity.

“This is a Noh mask,” he says confidently, voice finally sounding like it’s coming from his own mouth, the world slowly sliding back into place. “The texture of the interior is rougher than the exterior, and the shape and colour are distinctive, even with the… extra makeup.”

Phichit finally speaks up, stepping beside Yuuri and looking it over. “Noh masks are quite expensive, I think,” he says slowly, “But they are buyable. Hell, I think you can get them online.”

“Think the unsub planned this murder in advance?” Christophe asks, frowning. “Bought it before he killed Mr Doe?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “The skinning was definitely too hasty to have been planned. Probably just had it in his house somewhere, and decided to use it on a whim. This is a reach, but I feel like him buying a mask in advance just to display a body would be unlike him.”

“And the makeup?”

“Mockery.” Yuuri says flatly. “Pure mockery. Taking off the mask revealed a skinless face. I was meant to be horrified by the mask’s resemblance to me, and then further by the state of the body.”

Phichit’s breath catches, and he fixes Yuuri with a hard look. “Are you _sure_?” he demands.

Yuuri swallows, and turns to him. “I am,” he says, adjusting his glasses. He looks up, just in time to notice movement by the edge of the police barrier. A young man is standing there, slowly trying to tiptoe past the barrier with a camera in his hand.

He’s not sure what possesses him to yell, pushing past Phichit and Christophe towards the police barrier just as the young man startles and bolts in the other direction. Yuuri registers light brown hair with a red streak right before he turns and vanishes into the bushes.

“Yuuri, what —” Phichit begins, making a grab for his arm, but Yuuri is already yanking it out of his hands.

“There was someone there,” he says, gesturing towards the bushes. “He had a camera.”

“What did he look like?”

“Brown hair, red streak. Young.”

“Huh, that rings a bell,” interjects Christophe, already scrolling through his phone. “Like this?” And he holds out a photograph of the young man that Yuuri had seen.

“Yeah, just like that,” says Yuuri. “How —”

“That’s Kenjirou Minami,” says Christophe. “There’s a picture of him on the blog he runs of you.”

Yuuri narrows his eyes. “Looks like we should bring him in for questioning.”

* * *

_August 12th, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

The interrogation room is bare, lit by ugly green fluorescent lights. At a metal table in the centre, a young man with brown hair glares up at Yuuri as he enters.

“I’ve already been here for hours,” he snaps. “And I’ve told the police everything I know about this case — which is nothing.”

“But you knew Cao Bin,” Yuuri points out, as Phichit comes in with a giant filebox and slams it on the table with a cheery thud.

“So does his sister,” retorts the man, his scowl deepening. “That proves nothing. And unless you’re here to arrest me, I can leave anytime.”

“Well now that you mention it, _Crispy_ —”

“Don’t call me Crispy, Chulanont,” snaps Michele Crispino.

“You didn’t say that last time we met.” Phichit grins, not unlike a shark.

“I have _never_ met you before,” retorts Michele.

“You literally just called him by his last name,” Yuuri points out, deadpan, as he drums his fingers against the table. Michele glowers at him, before subsiding.

“Look, we ran into each other at an Italian restaurant, okay?” he snaps at Yuuri. “Can’t fault an Italian man for patronising an Italian restaurant.”

“Which was a front business for money laundering, if my memory of the raid serves me correctly,” Phichit points out. “Lots of guns getting run around homegrown terrorist rings with the help of that money, Crispy, which was why we had to shut it down. I still can’t believe they couldn’t make the charges stick to you.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Michele replies.

“You say that a lot for someone with his fingers in a lot of pies,” replies Phichit, resting his chin on his hands. “Just so happens one of your pies happens to be a little murderous.”

Michele’s eyes narrow. “You think _I_ killed Cao Bin?”

“We think you did _something_ to him, to get him to threaten to call the police on you if you contact him again,” replies Yuuri. He taps thoughtfully at the file boxes. “Lot of run-ins with the law you’ve got here.”

“I watch _Law and Order_ like the rest of you guys. I know you’re just bullshitting with that box,” retorts Michele.

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Really?” He opens the box, pulling out one of the files within. “Says here you did some time after confessing to robbing a hospital three years ago for oxy. What else have you helped yourself to, I wonder, in the time since then?”

Michele’s expression gets a little pained at that, but he says nothing. Yuuri sighs.

“Mr Crispino, tell us what we need to know. If you didn’t do it, you have nothing to fear.”

Michele arches a disbelieving eyebrow. “I had nothing to do with Cao Bin disappearing,” he states flatly.

“Then you’ll have no problem telling us what you were doing on the night of the 2nd of July, right?”

“I was with my sister Sara that night,” says Michele, crossing his arms. “We had a night in, watching cartoons. You can ask her; she’ll confirm it.”

“What about the nights of the 5th? 16th? 22nd? August 10th?”

“Fuck if I know!” exclaims Michele. “Probably with Sara! I spend a lot of time with her. She’s my baby sister and fuck if I’m going to let her go out with creepy dudes.”

Phichit sends Yuuri a look that clearly asks whether or not Michele knows how creepy _he’s_ being. Yuuri disguises his snort with a sudden bout of coughing.

“Okay, we’ll ask your sister to confirm that,” he says, before pausing to adjust his glasses. “What about the argument with Cao Bin, though? What did you two argue about, if it didn’t lead to his death?”

Michele bites his lip, looking down at the table with a sudden flush of self-consciousness. “He owed me money,” he says. “I was just trying to collect it.”

“Why did he owe you money?”

“For skates,” replies Michele.

Pause. Yuuri looks at Phichit, whose expression is clearly incredulous. He clears his throat. “Skates?” he echoes, and Michele nods again.

“We go way back,” he says. “Cao wanted to get back into skating — you must’ve heard about how he used to do it competitively, right? He was an ice dancer, but his partner was in an accident, and he took her passing really hard. I tried to get him out of that slump by offering to buy him skates and get him back on the ice, since he didn’t have the sponsorship money to do it himself anymore. He took it, after a while, and said he’d pay me back. But he didn’t, so I went to try and collect, and just got a threat to call the police for my troubles.”

Yuuri has the distinct feeling that the man is hiding something, especially given Cao’s sister’s revelations, but he decides not to press harder at this time. “So, is there some way we can get in touch with your sister to confirm your whereabouts?”

“Yeah,” says Michele. “She works as a nurse at Tisch Hospital, though she also does some outpatient —” he catches himself, frowning. “Wait a moment. Is this about the Couture Cutter?”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t know Cao Bin was a victim of the Couture Cutter?” he asks.

“No?” wonders Michele, and then his expression takes on a particularly nauseated tinge. “I heard about the most recent one. That was gross.”

And _that_ , Yuuri suspects, is the most truthful thing the man has said during their entire questioning. With a sigh, he clicks his pen and looks over at Phichit, whose eyes are narrowed thoughtfully next to the open file box.

“Thank you for your time, Mr Crispino. We’ll keep in contact with you if we have more questions.”

Michele grimaces. “Yeah, whatever,” he says. Yuuri gets the door for him, watching as the man makes his way down the corridor to the exit.

He turns to Phichit. “Pretty sure there are bullrings in Barcelona with less bullshit than that story,” he says.

Phichit snorts at that. “Yeah, but we don’t have any proof that he’s lying.”

Yuuri taps his notebook, where Sara Crispino’s name is written in capitals across the top. “Want to find some?”

* * *

_August 12th, 2017  
Tisch Hospital, New York City_

“Yeah, he was with me,” says Sara Crispino as she flits from bed to bed. Yuuri follows her sedately, carefully averting his gaze from the curtained-off patients and their loved ones.

“For all of the dates I listed?” he asks.

Sara raises an eyebrow at him from over one of the patients’ clipboards. She’s a handsome woman, with long dark hair tied in a ponytail and her scrubs bright and cheery. She smells vaguely of disinfectant — but then again the entire _hospital_ seems to smell like disinfectant.

“You’ll have to excuse my brother and I for not having precise memories of what we were doing on those nights,” she says coolly. “But neither of us deviate very much from our schedules. I work mornings to afternoons and go home in the evening. Sometimes I have to work late shifts, too, but you can search up my time sheets in the hospital database. I’m pretty sure most of those nights I went right home to my brother, though.”

“What exactly does your brother do?” asks Yuuri, frowning. “He didn’t exactly give off the impression that he worked a 9 to 5.”

“He’s been sort of soul-searching lately,” replies Sara vaguely. “Drifting, melancholy. Happens pretty often to young men.”

“Young people in general, I’d imagine.” Yuuri offers a smile, folding his hands behind his back. “You seem to have _your_ life together, Ms Crispino, compared to your brother.”

“Do I give off that impression?” she asks with a small smile of her own, turning back to the patient in the bed. Yuuri watches as she frets over the old man, patting his hand as she adjusts his IV drips.

“Perhaps,” he says. “Do you know any people your brother might have talked to a lot? Besides yourself, obviously.”

“Well, you’ve met him.” She shrugs. “He’s not a very friendly person. He can be charming, sure, but actual friends? Too much effort.”

“Well, he said he was close to a Mr Cao Bin. Can you confirm that?”

“Yeah, they were pretty close. Well, by Mickey’s definition of close. Which is probably very different from what you and I consider close.” Sara moves on to the next bed, taking the patient’s blood pressure and making some notes on her file. “It was mostly just business between them, though.”

“And buying Mr Bin a set of skates was just part of the business?” asks Yuuri, raising an eyebrow. “Your brother told us that Mr Bin owed him money for those skates, which led to their disagreement shortly before Mr Bin’s disappearance.”

“Skates?” echoes Sara. “Cao paid those off months ago. I think my brother just wanted things to go back to the way they were — Cao blocked his number when he went to rehab, and I think Mickey just wanted one of the people he might have considered a friend back in his life.”

Yuuri squints at that. Something doesn’t quite add up in this story either. “Ms Crispino,” he says, but she laughs a little at him, taking him by the arm and leading him out of the ward.

“ _Sara_ ,” she insists, flashing him a bright smile. She waves at a passing set of medical students, and turns back to raise an eyebrow at him, daring him to go on.

Yuuri feels his cheeks reddening, but he simply adjusts his glasses and sighs. “Sara, then,” he says. “Tell me the truth — did your brother ever sell ketamine to Cao Bin?”

Sara’s expression pinches up a little; her eyes dart uneasily along the busy hospital corridor. Yuuri hears the dim cries of children even in this ward for long-term residents; he swallows, remembering how often death must visit these halls.

“Well if he did, I have nothing to do with it,” she declares. “And before you ask, I would never misuse hospital property.”

“You were previously employed at Mt Sinai Beth Israel, right?” asks Yuuri. “There are police reports on your brother confessing to having stolen oxycodone from that hospital.”

“I had no idea he was doing that at the time,” replies Sara a little too hastily. “I was dismayed, especially since he’d stolen my credentials to do it.”

“And yet, despite this apparent breach in trust, you two are still very close,” Yuuri states. “ _My_ sister once stole my Stéphane Lambiel posters and I didn’t talk to her for a _month_.”

“Well, is your sister your twin sister?” asks Sara.

“No, and I thank God for it every day.”

Sara chuckles. “Well, having a twin is different. Mickey’s been with me from the very beginning, you know? When you know someone for that long, you really _know_ what kind of person they are, deep down.” Her expression hardens suddenly; her violet eyes go steely. “And I know my brother’s not the person you’re looking for.”

Yuuri thanks her for her time, before going to meet with Phichit and Christophe at Dr Nekola’s office. “Cao Bin had a thicker bladder than normal,” is what Phichit greets him with as he enters the morgue.

Yuuri blinks, as Dr Nekola opens up the drawer containing their most recent body. “Context?” he asks.

“Ketamine,” explains Christophe. “Long-term ketamine users have a thickened bladder or urinary tract, makes it more difficult for them to pee. They may also have kidney issues, but we didn’t find that in Cao Bin’s body. It was all in the report, but we’d thought —”

“We’d thought that it was because of the unsub,” says Phichit. “The other victims that had been held for years also had similar issues. But given that Cao Bin had only been with the unsub for a short while, clearly _his_ thickened bladder came from a prior addiction.”

“So he was probably overdosed,” says Yuuri. “The unsub didn’t realise he’d already built up a tolerance to the drug, and gave him too much when he failed to respond like the others.” He pauses. “Hence the gentle posing, leaving him like he’d just gone to sleep. The unsub felt remorse for Cao Bin’s death.”

“He felt no remorse for this guy, though,” says Phichit, as Dr Nekola pulls back the sheet covering the grotesque mass of flesh that had been their most recent victim’s face. “They ID’d him based on dental records. His name’s Yun Xiao, he was reported missing from… our backyard, actually. Washington D.C.”

“Didn’t travel _too_ far, compared to others,” agrees Christophe. “And he was only reported missing about a couple months ago, shortly before Seung-gil. His friends and family said he was travelling to meet a potential business partner, and then just never returned.”

“What kind of business?” asks Yuuri.

“Sewing machines,” replies Christophe. “He worked for Singer, actually.”

Yuuri takes the report, comparing the observations to the body. “COD’s definitely exsanguination?” he asks.

Dr Nekola nods. “The carotid artery was severed when the unsub slit his throat; he would’ve bled out in four minutes, tops.”

“And there’s blunt-force trauma to the frontal lobe,” mutters Yuuri. “Hairline fractures to the skull, coagulation patterns on the face consistent with bruising.” He pauses. “He was bashing his head against something blunt prior to his face getting removed?” he asks.

“Probably a wall,” replies Dr Nekola. “We’ve managed to get some flakes of paint and plaster from under his fingernails. Nothing particularly notable — he could’ve been scratching up my own office, for all that we know.”

“I still think the unsub had a hand in that,” says Phichit, shaking his head.

“No, he wouldn’t damage the goods.” Yuuri looks down at the body. “He punished Mr Xiao for damaging his face; he wouldn’t have touched him otherwise.” He looks up at Dr Nekola again, worrying at his lip. “Any theories as to why he was banging his head against the wall?”

“Sometimes ketamine users experience hallucinations,” replies Dr Nekola. “They’re also less susceptible to pain, because the drug is usually used as an anaesthetic. These kinds of hairline cranial fractures aren’t unusual as far as self-inflicted injuries go.”

Yuuri nods. “So Mr Xiao had a bad reaction, started banging his head against the wall, bruises his face, and ends up getting skinned and killed for it.”

“Poor guy,” says Phichit. “The unsub punished him for something out of his control.”

“Makes me think the unsub has had to deal with similar capriciousness in authority figures in his past,” Yuuri muses. “People punishing him ‘for his own good’, or holding him accountable for things he cannot control.”

“An emphasis on looks?” asks Christophe.

Yuuri nods. “Possibly.” He pauses. “Anything from the mask, Dr Nekola?”

Dr Nekola shakes his head. “We took off the viscera on the inside before giving it to the crime lab; you’ll have to pick it up from them. The makeup seems similar to the makeup found on Eric Trentwood, though.”

“So our unsub also has experience with makeup,” concludes Yuuri. “Man of many talents.”

A thick silence descends on the morgue after that, as they look down at the body. However, a sudden text tone blares through the static noise of the aircon somewhere in the building, coming from Phichit’s pocket. With an apologetic glance at everyone else, Phichit takes out his mobile and checks it.

“Leo’s found Kenjirou Minami,” he says. “They’ve brought him in for questioning.”

* * *

_August 12th, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

Unlike most suspects, Kenjirou Minami is positively beaming when they enter the interrogation room. He is also much more smartly dressed from when they’d last seen him, in a sharp little blazer offsetting the bright red streak in his hair.

“Agent Katsuki!” he burbles, as Yuuri takes a seat at the table. “It’s an honour!”

Yuuri feels his stomach churn the longer he looks into the sunny visage of the young man across from him. “And to who do I owe this… honour?” he asks.

The young man’s expression falls just slightly. “I’m Kenjirou Minami,” he gushes. “I’m such a fan!”

Of anything that could’ve possibly poured out of this man’s mouth, Yuuri had not been expecting _that_ , precisely. “That’s… actually not very comforting, Mr Minami, considering my last self-proclaimed fan tried to shoot up a church,” he says.

“No, I’m more a fan of how brave and clever you are,” insists Mr Minami, now leaning forward with his brown eyes sparkling and bright. Yuuri has a sudden mental image of a golden retriever puppy being told to wait before it can go fetch. “The way you figured out who Peter Lancaster was and then played him at his own game? It was like reading a Sherlock Holmes story! You were so cool in it!”

“It was part of the job,” demures Yuuri. “I was trying to make sure he doesn’t kill another family again, that’s all. When real lives are stake, you really don’t have time to step back and think about how ‘cool’ you are.”

“But, but that really —”

Yuuri ups his glare, and Mr Minami subsides, his cheeks tinged pink in embarrassment.

“What can I do for you, Agent Katsuki?” he asks quietly.

“Can you answer a couple questions for us?” Mr Minami nods, and Yuuri continues. “Where were you on the nights of the 2nd, 5th, 16th, and 22th of July, as well as the 10th of August?”

“Aren’t those the dates of the Couture Cutter’s victims being dropped?” asks Mr Minami. His eyes widen, bypassing dinner plates and heading straight for serving plates. “Am I under _suspicion_? Oh my god, this is so _exciting_!”

Yuuri immediately knows he doesn’t fit the profile. The fact that Minami’s suit looks extremely well-worn, plus the battered leather casing of his satchel, only serve to reinforce that.

“We simply wish to cover our bases, considering the amount of attention you’ve drawn to our investigation,” he replies smoothly, folding his hands on the table. “Why did you create a blog following my cases?”

Mr Minami flails wildly at that, as if trying to pluck the words out of the air surrounding them. “Katsuki-sensei… kakkoi desu!” he squeals, the sudden Japanese catching Yuuri off-guard. He turns around to look at the mirror, sending an incredulous stare at the others currently lurking in the observation room next door. Surely this must be Leo’s idea of a joke, and he’d roped some poor nerd on the way to an anime convention into it.

But alas, Mr Minami is now waxing poetic in Japanese. Yuuri catches something about ‘aspiration’ and ‘better than Kogoro Akechi and Shinichi Kudo put together’ and how ‘Edogawa Ranpo-sensei would’ve loved to meet you’, before he’s had enough and clears his throat loudly. Mr Minami quickly falls silent, suitably chastened.

“Is there anything about the Couture Cutter that you know that you don’t put on the blog?” he asks.

Mr Minami purses his lips. “I think he’s a fan of Agent Katsuki, too,” he replies. “Especially given some of the recent bodies. Two of them have been done up with makeup to look like you!”

Yuuri’s eyes narrow. “The public doesn’t know about that,” he points out.

“I’ve got one of those police scanner apps,” replies Mr Minami. “I hear things about the crime scenes and I usually try to get there and take pictures for the blog. I’m not blind; I saw the mask on the last one, and the contouring on one of the others.”

“Why are you taking pictures for the blog?” asks Yuuri.

Mr Minami has the decency to look a little sheepish. “It started out as a class project,” he admits. “Last semester one of my media and communications classes had an ongoing project of running a news blog, so I decided to focus on contemporary true crime. One thing led to another, and I started to notice that you were behind a lot of the major arrests and convictions for the FBI in the past seven years: Peter Lancaster, Andrew Scholes, Tamara Doyle…”

Yuuri smiles, tight and strained. “Only the successes, I see,” he remarks.

“I figure you wouldn’t want your failures broadcasted,” replies Mr Minami, shrugging.

“What makes you so sure you want to broadcast this one, then?” Yuuri wonders, raising an eyebrow. “The trail could go cold.”

He’s starting to fear that it will, already. It’s no use only reacting to the unsub, but he doesn’t even know where to begin in provoking a reaction from _him_. How can he, when the killer himself is so capricious in his whims? This level of unpredictability is not something he’s ever seen before. It could be entirely possible for him to end up standing knee-deep in bodies but still at a loss at how to explain them — and he’s had many nightmares about that even _before_ he got onto this case.

“I think you’ll catch him,” says Mr Minami, though, his face shining with idolatry and optimism. “The Couture Cutter’s been clever so far, but I bet you could get him to make a mistake.”

“What makes you think that?” asks Yuuri. Mr Minami leans in.

“He’s your fan, isn’t he?” he asks. “He’ll slip up someday, trying to outsmart you. I’m sure of it.”

Yuuri laughs at that in spite of himself, adjusting his glasses as he does so. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he replies. “In the meantime, could you answer my original question? Where were you on the nights of the 2nd, 5th, 16th, and 22th of July, as well as the 10th of August?”

Mr Minami flushes at that. “I don’t remember, but I think I was probably doing homework,” he says.

“Over the summer?” asks Yuuri, quirking an eyebrow.

“I take summer classes, and I have an internship at the _New York Times_ ,” replies Mr Minami, flushing.

“And where do you usually do your work?”

“In my room. I like things to be quiet, I like to be in control of my music, and my ears start hurting if I use headphones for too long. So, yeah, my space works best.”

“And you usually work alone?”

“I have a flatmate, but he’s more social than I am, so he’s frequently out,” agrees Mr Minami, turning a brighter shade of red with each minute. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t look good for me.”

It doesn’t, but Yuuri isn’t about to divulge the other factors that clearly absolve him of any suspicion of being the Couture Cutter.  As it is, he barely smiles.

“Well, thank you for your time, Mr Minami,” he says. “If we have any further questions, we’ll be in touch. In the meantime —” and here, he leans in closer, watching the way the younger man trembles at their proximity, “don’t leave town, and _don’t_ post anything about this meeting on your blog.”

He pulls back and winks. Based on the winded expression Mr Minami has when he does so, Yuuri suspects that he won’t tell a soul.

Or perhaps that’s just his own hopeful wishing.

* * *

_August 20th, 2017  
Tisch Hospital Rooftop, New York City_

“There’s something wrong with this picture,” Yuuri says.

A normal person would say yes, there is something wrong, because of the presence of the person on the roof curled up and unmoving. But that’s beyond the point now.

“What did he die of?” Phichit asks, mystified. Next to him, Christophe surveys the New York morning skyline with an expression that screams of ‘not this place again’. Yuuri feels inclined to agree — this is the second time they’ve visited Tisch in the last two weeks.

There’s muted conversation from the crowd near them, nurses and medical staff either on breaks or skiving off work to see what the commotion is. They crane their necks to look over at the body, but to no avail; the police are keeping them off the roof and in the stairwell.

The victim looks peaceful in death — happy, almost. Deathly pallor distorting lightly tanned skin, closed eyes, and slightly parted lips. There are no visible wounds, no signs of trauma. His hair splays around his head like some inversion of a halo, but there’s nothing deliberate about this corpse. For all intents and purposes, it appears that this man simply walked up to the roof, laid down, and ceased moving forever.

Yuuri crouches closer to the body, taking in the position of the hands and the pallor of the skin. “This is not our unsub’s work. The clothes are most likely his own.” The button-up, sweater, and jeans all look comfortably worn, like a favorite outfit. Nothing like Popovich’s blazer on a body in a dumpster. “This could have fallen under the hospital's purview — why did they call us?”

“He fits the victim profile,” Christophe comments, walking up to them and looking down at the corpse as well. “Light-skinned Asian, dark hair, lying out here where he shouldn’t be.”

“That’s still a reach to call us.” Yuuri says. “Whoever found him didn’t check the hospital records first?”

Christophe shrugs, and gestures to where a man with bright red hair and hospital scrubs is talking to an officer, shooting looks at the corpse every few seconds. “He was found by a nurse going on a smoke break. He didn’t recognize him, thought he was sleeping at first and, as we know, he wasn’t asleep. Considering that all the public knows about the Couture Cutter —” Yuuri cuts him a glare, and Christophe amends his statement, “Considering that all the public knows about _the unsub_ is that he targets young Asian men with dark hair and light skin and displays the bodies, the nurse’s first thought was to call 911, not the morgue.”

“Well, I’m glad that he has some sensibility to inform the police instead of the Internet, but this man, whoever he is, died of natural causes.”

“Natural causes? He’s not supposed to be up here at all,” Christophe counters. “It looks pretty unnatural to me.”

“Even if he’s not supposed to be up here, I imagine that he’s at least a patient in this hospital. Besides, think about it — the last building our unsub staged a body in was a theatre, which he had access to and was empty all night. This hospital is crowded around the clock, has security and cameras covering every inch. How could he have dragged a body to the roof without being noticed? Our unsub is _good_ , but not _that_ good,” Yuuri explains, running a hand through his hair. “Besides, the body’s not displayed. If our unsub were to have a hand in this man’s death, he’d most likely have been noticed hanging off the side off the roof, not sleeping on the floor.”

Christophe mulls his words over, and nods. “So we check the patient records then?”

Yuuri waves his hand. “No, let’s just go back to the field office. This is a job for the ME, not us.”

He looks down at the corpse. Mr Doe’s dark clothes makes him stand out from the off-white concrete tile, and even to Yuuri, he looks asleep. Whoever he was, he had a peaceful death, something the Couture Cutter’s victims would have envied.

But it’s clear that that his identity and how he died is literally not Yuuri’s division, so he turns away and heads for the stairwell. For a moment, he thinks he sees a familiar face in the crowd, but it’s fleeting, so he dismisses it.

As he leaves, he hears one of the other nurses speak up, his words cracking with grief. “I —  wait, I think I know — ”

* * *

_September 1st, 2017  
FBI Field Office, New York City_

After the false alarm, nothing else happens for a while on the case. No new bodies or breakthroughs, and Yuuri’s starting to fear he’s approaching a dead end.

“Kenjirou Minami’s alibis actually check out, believe it or not,” says Christophe as he pulls up a series of CCTV footage screenshots one afternoon. “NYU student records show he’d been taking summer session classes, and the _New York Times_ confirmed that he was one of their summer interns. That, and Walker managed to get me the footage of his street on the nights in question and he never left his building past 7PM.”

“He could have used a side exit,” says Yuuri, though it’s more of a token protest than anything. Mr Minami doesn’t look like he has the skills or the money to be the unsub.

“His landlord confirmed that he didn’t hear Mr Minami leave his apartment, either,” replies Christophe. “Which I know isn’t hard evidence, but —”

“He strikes me as more of an armchair sleuth than a killer,” agrees Yuuri.

Christophe chuckles. “Putting it that way, yes.” Yuuri’s ears heat at that, but he says nothing, only turns back to the pictures of the victims with a weary sigh.

“I’m starting to wonder if we should contact Mr Minami again,” he says. “Phichit and I have been looking through his blog, and he’s only recently started getting massive amounts of web traffic _because_ of our current investigation.”

Phichit comes over to the desk at that moment with two mugs of tea in his hand, one of which he hands to Yuuri. “Ooh, are we talking about Kenny’s blog?” he asks.

Yuuri sends him an exasperated look as if to say ‘Kenny? _Really_?’, but Phichit takes it in stride.

“Because staring at a screen for long periods of time makes our intrepid leader’s head ache, I took the liberty of combing through Kenny’s blog all the way to its humble beginnings as a school project,” he explains, pulling up the blog over the CCTV screenshots. Yuuri’s phone chimes at that moment with a message; he quickly sneaks a glance at the banner.

_I’m coming home in a couple days, miss you so much already <3_

He smiles a little, tuning back in to Phichit’s monologue just as he starts to talk about Yuuri’s cases: “You’ll notice there’s been more interest and discussion of all of Yuuri’s cases — 23 comments and 584 hits on the writeup for the Lancaster case, compared to 2 comments and 98 hits on the writeup for the Gless killings, even though the Gless article was arguably more compelling given the unique manner of death.”

“Wasn’t he the guy who tried to turn his victims into his dead babysitter prior to killing them?” asks Christophe. “And then he started —”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Yuuri cuts in, shivering despite the fact that the air conditioning on this floor of the field office had been broken all week. “The most recent articles that Mr Minami has written all concern the current case, and it’s drawn in an unprecedented amount of attention. He’s practically a source for the news outlets themselves now, considering that he gets to our crime scenes faster than they do.”

“We’re going to tell him to stop it?” asks Christophe, frowning.

Yuuri shakes his head. “No, we’re going to try and reach out to the unsub through his blog,” he replies. “If the unsub reads his blog — and I strongly suspect he does, given how much attention Mr Minami pays to me — he’ll definitely jump at anything exclusive that Mr Minami prints about me.”

“And what sort of ‘exclusive’ thing were you thinking about giving Minami?” asks Christophe. Yuuri purses his lips as he fires off a couple heart emojis to Viktor, before looking up again.

“That part I’m still trying to work out, but —”

He’s cut off by the sound of Phichit’s phone again. Phichit mouths an apology as he answers it, but suddenly his expression goes slack and his eyes go wide, and he reaches for his suit jacket and badge without a second word.

“What’s going on?” Christophe asks, as Phichit mutters something into the phone and hangs up. The other man’s eyes are panicked as he reaches for the door.

“They’ve found Seung-gil,” he says, and neither Yuuri nor Christophe need another word before they’re joining him in the rush out the door.

Phichit explains the rest in the car. “Leo just called me,” he says, his hands fidgeting with his badge as Christophe maneuvers them through Manhattan traffic. “He said some golfers at Lake Pleasant saw a dark-haired Asian man wander through their game, and they called 911. The sheriff showed up, recognised him, and called the NYPD.”

“What’s his condition?” asks Yuuri, as Christophe honks at someone who’d just cut them off.

“Critical — he’s suffering severe dehydration and malnourishment according to the paramedics on the scene. They’re airlifting him to Tisch Hospital right now.”

“When is he supposed to arrive?” asks Christophe, suddenly swinging a sharp right and putting on the sirens.

“I don’t know!” Phichit exclaims. “Leo didn’t give me an ETA. We have to be there, though — I have to —”

Yuuri reaches out from the back seat, patting his friend’s shoulder. Phichit clutches onto him like a drowning man to a life preserver, and Yuuri holds on just as fast.

The unsub has made a mistake. Somehow, impossibly, one of his victims has escaped. And if they could get Seung-gil to talk, then they’d have a big break in the case, and this entire nightmare will be over as soon as he catches the monster that’s been terrorising New York all summer. He’s shivering again, though this time he blames it on the car’s AC, currently turned so high that he could swear there were little flakes of frost in the vents.

Tisch Hospital is a blur after that. Everyone is hectic and slightly on edge — it’s the third time the FBI have been at Tisch, after all — and Phichit refuses all chairs offered to him as he paces up and down the corridor, staring out the window at the East River gleaming in the afternoon sun. Yuuri sits, watching his friend with no idea what to do, what to say. He feels like he’s perched at the edge of a precipice, a river rushing swift and merciless down below, and nowhere else to turn but ahead, into the chasm.

Then, overhead, the distant sound of a helicopter. Then an ambulance, the scurrying footsteps of doctors and nurses, the pounding of Yuuri’s own heart. The sirens wail, louder and louder, cutting to a stop near the emergency entrance doors.

The doors burst open like the sound of a gun going off, catalyzing everyone into action. Phichit darts towards the gurney being wheeled down the hall, towards the unruly head of black hair stark against the stretcher. Seung-gil’s arm is dangling off the side, but Phichit captures it as soon as he reaches it, despite the panicked yelling of the EMTs at his side.

“Seung-gil!” he breathes. “Seung-gil, it’s me —”

“Sir, please step away —” one of the doctors says, but Phichit pushes past him, keeping time with the stretcher even as it rounds a corner. Yuuri can barely keep up himself, watching in quiet panic as a nurse tries to replace Seung-gil’s oxygen mask.

A flicker of brown in a ghastly pallid face — the sedative they must have used on him during transport is wearing off. “Seung-gil!” Phichit exclaims.

They’re just about to enter the emergency department. The doors are swinging. Someone is yelling about hydration, about IVs full of solutions whose names go right over Yuuri’s head.

“Who’s Seung-gil?” breathes the man on the bed.

Phichit blinks. “ _You’re_ Seung-gil,” he says. “You’ve been missing for the past few months! I’ve been so worried —”

“I’m not Seung-gil,” says the man, and his voice is so quiet that it should’ve been lost amid the crowd, but somehow Yuuri still hears it as he comes to Phichit’s side. “I’m Yuuri Katsuki.”

The door swings. Phichit’s hand slips, and the doctors push the gurney through and out of sight, and Yuuri can hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: references to kidnapping, ketamine drug use, nonconsensual drug use
> 
> Wrath: The kinktomato joke is one of our finest moments, and Yun Xiao is one of my finest bodies.  
> Lily: Stay tuned for more sick jokes


	5. Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrath: Seung-gil fans, this is the point of no return. We take no responsibility for any emotional trauma you may garner from ignoring this warning.
> 
> Additional warnings at the end of this chapter.

_September 1st, 2017  
Tisch Hospital Trauma Recovery Ward, New York City_

“What did the doctor say?”

Yuuri looks up at Phichit, who has entered the waiting room with a resigned slump to his shoulders. Next to him, Christophe puts down his magazine, his eyebrows still quirked.

“They’re rehydrating him, replenishing lost nutrients, bringing his blood sugar levels back down to normal. He’d apparently been wandering for a while, a couple days at most. Especially given his diabetes, it’s amazing he managed to survive for so long without insulin.”

“Means the unsub definitely has access to insulin,” says Yuuri, “and knows how to administer it.” His voice sounds distant, even to his own ears. His body feels distant, too, not quite his own.

 _I’m not Seung-gil. I’m Yuuri Katsuki_.

He had refused to see it for so long. Refused to believe that the unsub was turning his victims into _him_ , personally. Maybe in effigy, maybe in mockery, but always as a statement. A love letter at its most macabre.

But what if the transformation into Yuuri is because the unsub cannot have Yuuri himself? Knows that the only communication they ever will have as their true selves is cat and mouse, predator and prey, hunter and hunted? The pieces on the chessboard shift, the river rushes loudly in Yuuri’s ear. He had thought the unsub might have loved the object of his affections, the muse for which he creates these grotesque works of art, but…

Yuuri himself. The idea that the unsub loves Yuuri _himself_ , and is willing to brainwash other men into becoming surrogates for him — that’s an idea that burrows deep into Yuuri’s mind, peels away the edges of his soul to curl up inside. He’s glad he’s already sitting, because he’s sure his legs would’ve given out otherwise.

“They’ve done a rape kit on him, just in case. They’ve scraped his nails and bagged his clothes and are processing them. The lab should have the results soon; I’ve asked them to put priority on it.” Phichit is wringing his hands. “But they say he should recover — physically, at least.”

Yuuri adjusts his glasses. “He seemed delirious,” he says. “He didn’t know where he was, or who he was.”

“He said _your_ name, Yuuri,” Phichit points out. “He said he was you.”

“Maybe he was high on ketamine,” replies Yuuri, though at this point it feels more and more like a feeble token protest. Phichit seems to think the same, too, because he shakes his head.

“Just give it up,” he says. “The unsub’s making his victims _into_ you.”

“I want to talk to him.” He can’t accept it aloud, not yet. Not until he looks Seung-gil in the eyes and hears it again, more lucidly.

“We can go in to see him now,” replies Phichit, nodding towards the door. “He’s resting.”

Yuuri nods, and opens the door. The waiting room had been a little fish tank of solitude and quiet, separate from the bustle of the rest of the ward. Through the door are patients on stretchers, in wheelchairs, sporting all sorts of injuries and bandages. The receptionist leads him to a small recovery room, where Seung-gil is lying in a bed curtained off from the other patients.

“He’ll be in recovery here for the night, and if he gets through that fine, we’ll move him to a ward for longer-term patients,” says the doctor as Yuuri stops by Seung-gil’s bed.

“Has he said anything?” he asks.

“He’s been in and out, muttering stuff we couldn’t catch,” replies the doctor. “Please don’t waterboard him or whatever it is you FBI types do.”

“Waterboarding’s the CIA’s specialty,” deadpans Yuuri, cracking a smile for the lady’s benefit. “But seriously, he’s one of ours, we’re not going to hurt him. We also want him to recover before we ask any questions.”

A shadow flickers across her expression. “That may take a while,” she says. “He’s clearly been through a lot, and has only barely escaped much worse, if your investigation’s anything to go by.”

Yuuri nods. “We’ll be patient,” he says, and pulls up a chair. Phichit also does the same on Seung-gil’s other side; Christophe is the only one left standing at the foot of the bed, head bowed as he looks at Seung-gil’s vitals beeping on the monitors nearby.

Seung-gil’s complexion has barely improved from when they’d first seen him, and from here, Yuuri is once again confronted by what he’s been denying this whole time. His hair had been trimmed and restyled in a way that makes Yuuri duck away from his own reflection in the window. The man lying in the bed in front of him is already reflection enough.

“His eyebrows have been trimmed,” Phichit observes, voice soft. There’s no other physical markers of a transformation, though, and that makes Yuuri sigh with relief — the only bit of relief he’s felt ever since Seung-gil had said his name. Hair can regrow, bruises can fade, but trauma…?

There’s a quiet moan from the bed. The three agents look down, just in time to see Seung-gil stir from his sleep. Phichit’s hand darts out, as if he would like to take Seung-gil’s, but his fingers stop just short, eyes fixed in growing horror on Seung-gil’s face as the other man opens his eyes.

Every single bit of relief that Yuuri had felt just minutes before now fade away at the sight of Seung-gil’s eyes. There’s no pupil in sight in either of them, and Yuuri flinches at the milky brown that’s overtaken it, as if the iris had exploded to flood the rest with blood and brown. Blood vessels creep from the corners, ominous in their number. The center is only barely darker than the rest, tinted by green in a way that reminds Yuuri of long-molded bread and — Yuuri has to wrench his gaze away from Seung-gil’s sightless one, too unnerved.

Phichit waves a hand. Seung-gil doesn’t follow the movement, only blinking at a shadow in front of his face.

“Is he…?” Christophe breathes. Yuuri nods.

“I thought you said that the doctors said he’d make a full recovery,” he says to Phichit, who worries at his lip, his own eyes desperately looking anywhere but at Seung-gil’s.

“They said he’s going to _live_.” Phichit enunciates the last word with a despair more commonly found at a wake. “Not that he’ll be fit to return to work or something.”

“How did the unsub _do_ that?” demands Yuuri, gesturing towards Seung-gil, who only furrows his brows as the shadows shift in front of his face. “It looks… it’s gruesome.”

“He was probably made to wear colour contacts,” says Christophe. “They might have been the wrong size, and he might have forgotten to take them out — or been unable to.”

“And _that’s_ why I wear glasses,” Yuuri mutters, before averting his gaze again. “Is there anything the doctors could do about it?”

“Maybe not over here,” says Christophe. “Studies show that epithelial oxygen uptake usually reverts back to normal after a month without contact lenses, as well as epithelial thickness. However, endothelial polymegethism and stromal thickness —”

“English, please,” Phichit interrupts. Christophe sighs.

“His eyes might go back to looking normal after a couple months, but restoring sight might be trickier, and I doubt this hospital has enough specialists who could help him with that,” he explains.

They’re interrupted by the sound of the hospital bed shifting. “Where am I?” Seung-gil rasps, head turning in agitation. He tries to extricate his hand from Phichit’s grasp, but Phichit has a death-grip on him. “Who are you?”

“I’m Phichit.” Yuuri knows at this moment that Phichit’s feelings for Seung-gil are well and alive, because only something as blinding as true love could compel anyone to stare as determinedly into _those_ eyes as Phichit is doing right now. “You’re going to be all right now, Seung-gil —”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” asks Seung-gil, and Yuuri’s spine freezes. “Who’s Seung-gil?”

“You are,” Phichit insists, running his thumb across the other man’s knuckles. Yuuri swallows, focusing instead on the vitals monitor beeping at a steady rhythm next to Seung-gil’s bed.

“I’m Yuuri Katsuki,” states Seung-gil, as normally as one might introduce themselves to a stranger. “I’m a Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI.”

Phichit turns back, looking at Yuuri, who very determinedly fixes his gaze to Seung-gil’s forehead as he says:

“Okay… Mr Katsuki.”

“Agent Katsuki,” retorts Seung-gil, and it’s uncanny how accurately he replicates Yuuri’s tone of voice.

“Agent Katsuki,” amends Yuuri. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-one,” says Seung-gil automatically.

“Where are you from?”

“Hasetsu Beach, California. But I’m currently based in Washington D.C., and for my current case I’m living in New York City.”

Yuuri’s fingernails dig into his palms. “What was the first major case that you solved?”

“The Peter Lancaster case in 2010,” replies Seung-gil. “He was a family annihilator operating in the suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut, who would strike when only the child was out so that he could lay in wait and kill the child last. His last victims were the Plisetskys, though he was unable to kill their son Yuri because —”

“Okay, okay,” says Yuuri, “that’s enough, thank you.”

“He sounds like he’s just rattling off Wikipedia articles,” Christophe remarks. “Ask him something harder.”

“Where did you go to to school, Agent Katsuki?” asks Phichit, his expression pained.

“Wayne State University in Detroit. I majored in Criminal Justice, and was recruited to the FBI Academy in Quantico shortly after my graduation.”

“Is _that_ on Wikipedia?” demands Yuuri.

“No, but Kenny has a pretty detailed biography of you on his blog,” says Christophe.

“So we know the unsub’s read the blog.” Phichit chuckles weakly. “What about something that’s not on the Internet?”

“ _I_ don’t know what’s on the Internet!” Yuuri exclaims. “And how come no one’s gotten Mr Minami to take down his posts about me?”

“He doesn’t state outright that it’s you he’s talking about, he just has tidbits _about_ you sprinkled into his articles about your cases. Which he then puts into your tag.” Christophe pauses. “I suppose it also helps that most of his posts are in your tag.”

“I don’t think his family’s been brought up yet,” Phichit remarks.

“I’m still here, you know,” chimes in Seung-gil, in the exact exasperated tone Yuuri takes whenever his partners act up. The three of them flinch at that, and Christophe shakes his head.

“I think the unsub’s also watched all of your interviews,” he says. “Maybe even spoke to you once or twice. Handed you your coffee, maybe?”

“I’m not going to interrogate every barista in New York!” Yuuri snaps.

“What are you guys talking about?” asks Seung-gil. “Who are you?”

“We’re from the Department of Homeland Security,” Phichit says, as Yuuri leans in and adds:

“Where is your team, Agent Katsuki?”

“I —” Seung-gil flounders, the shapeless brown blobs that used to be his eyes blinking sightlessly up at them. “I don’t know where they are.”

“ _Who_ are they?” asks Yuuri, in his most intimidating tone.

“SSA Chulanont and Dr Giacometti,” replies Seung-gil. “But I don’t know where they are.”

Yuuri looks up at Phichit, wordlessly asking for permission. Phichit nods. Yuuri leans in closer. “We’ve just rescued you from a hostage situation, Agent Katsuki,” he says. “And we need you to answer some more questions about yourself so we can be sure it’s you.”

Seung-gil nods, so Yuuri sighs and asks:

“Who are your parents, Agent Katsuki?”

“My parents?” asks Seung-gil, “Hiroko and Toshiya Katsuki. They run a beachside motel called Yu-Topia.”

“Any siblings?” asks Yuuri.

“Mari,” says Seung-gil, with a small smile. “She’s older than me; she helps my parents run the motel.”

“And pets?”

“A husky,” says Seung-gil, and then freezes. “No, wait. I’m sorry. That’s not — please don’t — was it a poodle? I think it was a poodle, please don’t hurt me!”

Yuuri immediately recoils, his hands out in a placating gesture. “It’s all right, it’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you,” he says.

“Oh my god,” breathes Phichit, his knuckles white against Seung-gil’s hand. Seung-gil yanks his hand away from Phichit, curling up on the bed. The heart rate monitor is going haywire, causing a nurse to come running into the room and shove the curtain back.

“You three are distressing the patient, get out,” she snaps, and they quickly scramble to obey her, rushing past the other beds on their way out of the room and into the darkened corridor. Yuuri’s own heartbeat pounds at the same staccato as Seung-gil’s as he tries to catch his breath, sinking heavily into a chair.

“We’re not letting him out of our sight,” says Phichit.

Yuuri can only nod in agreement, too horrified to speak.

* * *

_September 3rd, 2017  
Tisch Hospital, New York City_

Once they move Seung-gil to a more long-term recovery ward, Phichit moves into the chair by Seung-gil’s bedside, only leaving for food and bathroom breaks.

Leo comes by, with Hoppang in tow. The first time she puts her paws on his legs, Seung-gil reaches for her before flinching back, saying nothing. Hoppang’s whines cause the nurse — Sara Crispino, Yuuri notes — to stick her head in and remind them that they had only allowed this animal into the hospital because Captain Cialdini had claimed she could be quiet. Yuuri privately thinks that prior to this, Ms Crispino has never interacted with a husky before.

“What is your name?” he asks, once Leo has regretfully muzzled the dog, though it only reduces the whining to a low and persistent grumble. Seung-gil turns his head, and Yuuri is incredibly grateful for the blindfold that is now nestled across the other man’s eyes.

“Yuuri Katsuki,” replies Seung-gil, but the inflection is different from the last time.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Where are you from?”

“Hasetsu Beach and Washington D.C.” The words come out of him like vocabulary words memorised by rote out of a student’s mouth. Yuuri swallows, and presses on.

“What was your first major case?”

“Peter Lancaster, 2010. Family annihilator. I… I…” Seung-gil struggles for the rest of the answer, and even through the blindfold, Yuuri can see the fear dawning on him. “I can’t —”

“Don’t worry,” insists Yuuri gently. “It’s all right if you don’t know. Okay, where did you go to school?”

“University of California, Irvine.” A pause. “Wait, that’s not —”

“No, it’s fine.” Yuuri keeps his voice gentle. “Where do you work currently?”

“The Behavioural Analysis Unit at the FBI. Washington D.C.”

“Where is your team?”

Silence. Yuuri sighs.

“Who is your team?”

“SSA Chulanont and Dr Giacometti.” The lines of Seung-gil’s body relax just slightly. “We’re currently in New York on a case.”

Yuuri nods, adjusts his glasses. “Who are your parents?” he asks.

“Hiroko and Toshiya Katsuki.”

“And your sister?”

“I have a sister?”

Yuuri chuckles at that, heartened. However, the laughter causes Seung-gil to freeze, his heartbeat to quicken. Next to him, Leo shifts uncomfortably and Hoppang whines.

Yuuri sighs. One last question. “Your dog?” he asks.

Seung-gil reverts to silence again, but this time he turns towards where Hoppang had whined. His fingers spasm, as if he’s scratching behind a dog’s ears, and then subside against the hospital blanket.

The door to the private room opens at that moment, announcing the arrival of Sara Crispino and a covered tray on a trolley. “Lunchtime, handsome!” she chirps merrily. “Gotta give you your insulin before you eat, though.”

“You’re just saying I’m handsome to be nice,” Seung-gil says drily, and judging by the way Leo startles, that had reawakened a very familiar memory.

Sara laughs as she adjusts the hospital bed into a more upright position and places the tray on a table extending over Seung-gil’s lap. “Well, even if you think you’re not handsome, you’re at least quite a joker. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?”

“No,” snaps Seung-gil. “I can’t. Because I’m _blind_.”

Hoppang’s tail starts to wag, while Leo’s eyes sparkle with what Yuuri suspects is hope (and a little amusement). “That sounds like the old bastard,” Leo remarks quietly from next to Yuuri. “Never thought I’d almost cry to hear such deadpan snarking again.”

Sara chuckles as she quickly injects Seung-gil with insulin and takes the cover off the tray, pulling up a seat so she can feed it to him. She then turns to Yuuri, almost like an afterthought, and says, “I think there was someone looking for you outside, Agent —”

Yuuri shakes his head furiously at that, and Sara quickly coughs.

“Mr —” her eyes wildly dart around the room, before landing on the curtains. “Green.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says briskly, before turning to Seung-gil. “We’ll be back to check on you, Agent Katsuki,” he says. “Bon appétit.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that before a hospital meal,” says Seung-gil, “but thanks for the thought.”

Leo stifles a giggle. His hope is infectious; Yuuri finds himself smiling as well as he walks out of the room, only to find Christophe on the other side of the door with a file clutched in his hands.

“How is he?” asks Christophe, nodding towards the door.

“Getting better,” says Yuuri. “He spat out his own college instead of mine. And he doesn’t have a sister.” He pauses. “He recognised Hoppang, though, and said some things to the nurse that _I_ would never say.”

“Yeah, you’d never flirt with a nurse.”

“Neither did he,” replies Yuuri, rolling his eyes.

Christophe raises an eyebrow. “He cussed out a nurse?”

“No! Not quite, anyway.” Yuuri shakes his head. “He was just rude.”

Christophe laughs at that, before turning his attention back to the files in his hand. “The rape kit came back negative,” he says. “The dirt in the scraping they took from his nails comes from the Adirondacks.”

“Did they find ketamine in his bloodstream?”

“Yeah, but a lot less than the others, obviously. He probably processed the drug faster because of his diabetes.”

“And he hasn’t been under it long enough for the other effects,” agrees Yuuri. “But now we also know why the other victims have been pumped full of ketamine.”

“Brainwashing,” agrees Christophe, all traces of mirth now gone from his face and voice. “Looking like you isn’t the only important thing to the unsub. Acting like you, sounding like you — all of it. He’s making them _become_ you.”

“But why?” asks Yuuri. “Why me?”

“I don’t know,” admits Christophe. “I don’t know, but I feel bad about joking that you fit the victimology. Turns out you _were_ the victimology.”  

Yuuri closes his eyes, rubbing at his temples. “Chris, please, just — honestly, I’m still trying to process all of this. It would be one thing if someone was just killing me in effigy as a statement or something. It’s another to know they’re torturing others into becoming me, and then killing them out of love — that’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my whole career.”

Christophe subsides at that, and for a moment they listen to the hustle and bustle of the hospital all around them. The sounds of laughter, of tears — of life and love more stark and sincere than anywhere else in the city. Yuuri slips into it, wallows in the emotions of everyone else around him for a moment longer, because he can no longer trust his own.

There’s a text noise from his mobile. Yuuri checks it, smiling as he sees Viktor’s cheerful emoji pop up on the screen.

_Home in 3 days! Wanna go somewhere when I come back? ;)_

Yuuri fires off a quick ‘ _Sure, if I’m free_ ’ before Christophe clicks his tongue and he hastily stows his mobile like a chastened teenager.

“Things going well with Viktor?” asks Christophe, hiding a grin behind the folder.

“That’s… classified,” says Yuuri, feeling his ears redden.

“Aw, come on,” wheedles Christophe. “I’m basically just one pay grade below you.”

“Still classified,” replies Yuuri.

“What if I said you could… not sleep on the couch?” wonders Christophe innocently. Yuuri has to admit, that’s super effective.

“We’re dating,” he concedes.

“Duh,” says Christophe. “Doesn’t take an FBI Agent to figure that out. I bet you’re the rage of his workplace gossip.”

Yuuri wants to tuck himself into his suit and never come back out. “I hope not,” he says. “Considering the people he runs around with, they’d probably think I’m not worthy.” He pauses. “Popovich probably hates my guts. Baranovskaya, too.”

Christophe pats his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I remember Masumi once told me Baranovskaya hates _everyone_. You’re not special.”

“Thank god,” mutters Yuuri, casting a pointed look at the folder. Christophe shifts it behind his back, smiling placidly.

“So, you got anything better than just ‘dating’?”

“ _No_ , considering I’ve been busy dating the Couture Cutter,” grumbles Yuuri.

“He _would_ enjoy that, I think,” says Christophe. “The Couture Cutter, not Viktor. Wait. Doesn’t this mean you’re cheating on your boyfriend with a serial —”

“Don’t even go there,” snaps Yuuri. To his credit, Christophe’s mouth snaps shut immediately.

Yuuri sighs, softening his expression and his tone.

“To be honest, Chris, I wish I was dating Viktor more,” he says. “I miss him.”

“Really?” wonders Christophe.

“Yeah, he’s always gone for photoshoots and shows, constantly. There was this one campaign video for Burberry that dropped the other day, and he just…” Yuuri sighs. “Is this _normal_?” he demands. “To miss someone this _badly_?”

Christophe coos at that. “Aww, is the unit chief all grown up and falling in —”

“Christophe, as your unit chief: _shut up_.”

Christophe chuckles. “But what about the Noh mask?” he asks.

Yuuri sighs. “Okay, don’t shut up. Tell me more about the Noh mask.”

He’s treated to a smug little smirk at that, but after he ups his glare, Christophe subsides and pulls out his mobile.

“The lab techs cleared the makeup. It’s a Juroku mask.”

“Sixteen?” asks Yuuri, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a type of mask based off a sixteen-year-old warrior in this one particular legend — wait. Shouldn’t you know more about this than me?”

Yuuri sighs, exasperated. “My _parents_ were from Japan. I’m just from California.” He pauses, squinting up at him. “It’s not like we’re expecting _you_ to know the alpenhorn, or yodel, or —”

“I get the point,” says Christophe, rolling his eyes.

“You sure about that?” wonders Yuuri. “Don’t need a little extra stabbing?”

“Is that a joke?” Christophe grins widely. “Okay, well. The point is, Juroku masks sell for, on average, 450 bucks on the Internet, even before shipping and handling. So even with the simpler clothing on Mr Xiao, the unsub still put something of value on him.” He pauses. “I’m personally more terrified of how much the _makeup_ cost.”

“Probably as much as your salary,” Yuuri remarks.

“Probably as much as hiring your boyfriend to model something,” retorts Christophe. Almost as if on cue, there’s another text. Yuuri looks down again.

_My flight gets in in the afternoon, let’s get dinner!_

Yuuri sends off a smiling emoji to that, before adding: _That sounds great!_

Christophe pointedly looks away, so Yuuri sneaks in a ‘ _I miss you a lot_ ’, before stowing his phone. The next time Viktor texts him is on the way back to the field office, and it’s nothing but hearts.

Yuuri smiles for the rest of the day.

* * *

_September 6th, 2017  
Tisch Hospital, New York City_

On the day of Viktor’s return, New York seems to get a little brighter. Despite the fact that he’d spent last night on the sofa, Yuuri actually wakes up smiling, with nary an ache in his back.

“We should visit Seung-gil again!” chirps Phichit as he comes in with Yuuri’s morning coffee. He’s got his usual plate of scrambled eggs in Sriracha in his other hand, and Christophe’s coffee in the crook of his arm. “I think he’s definitely making progress! He’s gotten half the answers wrong yesterday!”

“Considering that we’ve been visiting him ever since he was admitted, I was assuming we’d do the same today.” Yuuri shrugs as he takes the coffee from his friend. “Besides, it’s an excuse to go visit the ME’s office, too.”

Phichit beams at him. “I’m glad you understand,” he says. “I really hope he’ll be able to remember us soon.”

The ‘me’ hangs in the air between them for a moment, before Yuuri coughs, and adjusts his glasses. “Maybe you should get Chris’s coffee to him before he walks into the shower with his pyjamas on,” he suggests.

“He doesn’t wear anything to bed, it’s fine,” says Phichit, and Yuuri cringes at the remembrance of all the nights Christophe had spent on the couch. Thankfully, the landlady had never bothered to check on their living arrangements on those days. “I wonder if Seung-gil still takes his coffee the way he used to.”

Sure enough, the NYPD detective in question is sipping from a paper cup held by Sara when the three of them enter his room that afternoon, Phichit guiding Hoppang to sit by the bed.

“How’s the coffee?” he asks.

“One grade above ‘shit’,” is the acerbic reply. “I would not feed this to sewer rats.”

Sara coos, like a mother willfully ignorant of her obnoxious child. Yuuri suspects that her brother would have a conniption if he saw.

He steps closer to the bed. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Your murderer, if you keep asking me that,” retorts Seung-gil.

“Creative!” replies Yuuri. “But… your name, please.”

“Seung-gil Lee.”

“How old are you?”

“29,” replies Seung-gil immediately.

“Where are you from?”

“New York City, born and bred.”

“First major case?”

“Busted a drug ring in Chinatown. I’ve got a scar from a bullet I took during the raid, if you need proof —” and here, he begins to raise his hospital gown, but Yuuri quickly stills his hand.

“No, that’s quite all right,” he blusters, noticing Sara’s defined pout out of the corner of his eye. “Where did you go to school?”

“Stuyvesant High, and then UCI for criminology, and then the NYPD Academy.”

“Where do you work currently?”

“Detective at the 24th Precinct in New York City.”

“Where’s your team?”

“What?” Seung-gil frowns. “Fuck if I know; I’ve been AWOL for a while. They better be at work.”

Yuuri laughs a little at that. “Okay, and who’s your team?”

“Leo de la Iglesia. We report to Celestino Cialdini.”

“Who are your parents?”

“None of your business; they’re in Seattle.”

“And your sister?”

“Also none of your business.”

“And your dog?”

“Why do you want to know about my dog?”

Yuuri looks over at Phichit, whose eyes are sparkling even as he struggles with Hoppang’s leash. “Please, humour us,” he suggests.

“Isn’t she right there?” demands Seung-gil, pointing vaguely to where Hoppang is panting loudly.

“What’s your dog’s name?” asks Yuuri.

“Hoppang,” says Seung-gil, and like a magic bullet, the husky tears herself free from Phichit’s grasp and bounds onto the bed, barking joyfully as she licks her master’s face. Seung-gil exhales, one hand coming up to rub along her back; Hoppang immediately calms at that, settling down to cuddle against his chest instead.

“Dogs aren’t supposed to be on the bed!” Sara exclaims.

“Aw, piss off,” mutters Seung-gil. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. She’s my guide dog now.”

Yuuri smiles, even as Sara heaves a sigh and steps out of the room. “Welcome back, Detective Lee,” he says, brushing his fingers against Seung-gil’s hand. The detective takes it, shaking firmly just once, before returning to stroking happily at his dog’s fur.

“Can’t believe I have to say this, but it’s good to be back,” he says, before his voice softens a little. “Is that you, Agent Katsuki?”

“Yes,” says Yuuri.

“Are you sure? I heard a lot of you while I was gone.”

Yuuri’s heartbeat stutters in his chest. “What?”

Phichit chooses that moment to clear his throat, and Seung-gil’s head immediately swivels in his direction. “Is that Phichit?” he asks.

Phichit gasps. “Seung-gil!” he exclaims, rushing over to take Seung-gil’s hand. Hoppang licks at it, and Phichit laughs. “We were so worried about you!”

“I can’t see your face,” says Seung-gil. “But I’m pretty sure you’re smiling.”

The words are as dry as ever, but Yuuri can see how Phichit brightens at it, like the sun coming out of the clouds after a storm. He lets them cling for a moment, before clearing his own throat.

“So, Detective Lee, now that you’re back, are you capable of answering some questions about your captivity?”

Seung-gil consider it for a moment, before gently patting Hoppang’s rump, getting the husky to dart off the hospital bed. He then folds his hands in his lap, and even arches an eyebrow above his blindfold.

“What do you want to know?” he asks.

Yuuri pulls up a chair. “Start from the night you were taken,” he suggests. Seung-gil nods once, twice, and then begins to talk.

His memory is still patchy, and there are moments where he pauses, not quite remembering where he is. At one point he even clenches at his hands, fingernails digging into the skin as he tries desperately to bring himself back out of whatever dark places his memories must be at the moment. But slowly, a picture begins to form.

“I had a meetup with a guy I met on Tinder,” he begins. Phichit makes a strange noise at that, but Seung-gil ignores it and plows on. “He said his name was Chris Bailey, and he worked in marketing, and he wanted to try out this new place called the Silent Lamb.”

“What did he look like? Can you remember that?” asks Yuuri. Christophe heaves a long-suffering sigh from his place at the foot of the bed.

“He was tall, well-built and well-dressed. Blond hair, stubble.” Seung-gil’s brows furrow harder. “I can’t remember what colour his eyes were. Green, maybe? Or blue. But he had glasses. Expensive ones. Like his coat. I think his coat was designer.”

That seems to corroborate with the story they’d pieced together from the security footage thus far. Christophe’s knuckles are white against the footboard.

“We hit it off really well; he laughed at all my jokes and wasn’t boring,” says Seung-gil, though there’s very little affection in his voice, for obvious reasons. “Also, he liked dogs, but he couldn’t own one because his landlord had a no-pets policy, so I told him about mine and we traded cute dog videos in the taxi. He’d taken the PATH in from Hoboken because he hated finding parking in Manhattan. Which, you know, fair enough.”

“We managed to track you all the way to Hoboken, but we lost you at the parking garage,” Phichit murmurs. “What happened next?”

“We got into his car. I mean, at this point I thought I was going home with him, you know? He said he had an apartment nearby and he’d drive me home in the morning, but we weren’t obliged to do anything since he _wasn’t that kind of guy_.” Yuuri suspects that if he could see Seung-gil’s eyes — if Seung-gil’s eyes weren’t currently shapeless blobs — the man would be rolling them. “I wanted some water, he offered me a bottle, and it must’ve been drugged because the next thing I knew I was waking up in a sparsely-furnished bedroom with some man that… looked kinda like Agent Katsuki.”

Yuuri swallows. It’s hard not to shiver at the mental image. Seung-gil’s jaw is tense; he reaches out again, and Phichit grabs his hand immediately, stroking gently across the back. Seung-gil takes a couple deep breaths, evidently trying to calm himself before continuing.

“It wasn’t Agent Katsuki though, I knew. I mean, mostly because I’d just met the real one. The nose was a little off, the tone a little too light. Whatever. Point is, he said his name was Yuuri, and that I had been chosen to become Yuuri as well. I told him I had no fucking idea what he was on about, and he only laughed and said that it was his job to take care of me.”

Yuuri bites his lip. “And then what?” he asks.

“And then I tried to escape, tried to get out of there, but I also hadn’t had my shots in a while, so I wasn’t very good at getting anywhere. That fake Yuuri took me out, and when I came to again, my eyes were burning because of the contacts.”

There’s a collective wince through the three agents in the room. Yuuri would rather not have to remember the sight of what had once been Seung-gil’s eyes, but he sighs and looks back at Christophe, who is now quietly jotting down notes.

“I don’t remember much after that, since they had me high as a kite on some kind of drug,” says Seung-gil. “I’d process things a bit faster, though — I heard someone mention that outside my door — so they’d have to give me my shots alongside the drugs as well as my meals. And after the first day they never took out my contacts, so that’s why I can’t see a damn thing right now.”

“Why’d they do that? Refuse to take out your contacts?” asks Phichit.

Seung-gil goes silent and stiff for a moment. “They said I was being defective,” he says flatly. “That I wasn’t good like the others.”

“They?” echoes Christophe.

“The other Yuuris.”

Yuuri dimly wonders if it would be at all kosher to run to the nearest window, pry it open, and scream. But instead he just lets the urge perch just under his chin, percolating as Seung-gil continues to describe his experiences.

“How many do you think were there?” asks Phichit.

“About… I dunno,” Seung-gil shrugs. “Maybe twelve at the least? Probably more, though. Some of them talk about ‘the good ones’ who get to ‘live in the house’. But I guess I was with the bad ones, because I heard a lot of screaming.”

“Screaming,” repeats Phichit.

“Part of the process, I think,” says Seung-gil. “I don’t think I got to that part. The guy who took me never visited me, but I heard him talking sometimes out in the hall. And they never addressed him by a name, so I didn’t know that, either.”

“How did you escape?” wonders Yuuri. “You were found at Lake Pleasant, so…”

“I found my way out,” says Seung-gil. “I wasn’t kept in my room all the time. I could feel around, navigate. It was a really nice house, I think. And it was near a body of water. Probably isolated like hell, though. I don’t remember even hearing cars while I was out there.”

“There was some sort of brainwashing process they did to get you to remember my information,” Yuuri notes. Seung-gil flinches visibly at that, so Yuuri backpedals a little. “You don’t have to talk about that bit, if it’s too much.”

“No, I just. I don’t remember it too well. Mostly because of the drugs, I guess. But sometimes there was pain if I didn’t remember something. After a while I sort of just started floating away in my head whenever they punished me for the wrong answers.”

Yuuri winces. “I’m… I’m so sorry,” he says.

“It wasn’t you,” says Seung-gil a little crabbily. “They looked and sounded like you, but that was all they could do. Convincing acting, living a nightmare and a lie. Still, despite the drugs and the brainwashing and the contacts that they just wouldn’t take out no matter how hard I begged, they treated me pretty well. Gave me clothes and blankets, served me great food.” He laughs at that, a little harshly. “Would still give them 0 stars for hospitality on Airbnb, though.”

Phichit laughs. “What about the other things?” he asks.

“Nice and quiet, probably a great view. But the brainwashing bit negates the rest.”

“I can imagine,” says Yuuri. “You should rest now, Detective Lee. You’ve been through a lot and we don’t want to make things worse.”

“Very few things are worse, at this point,” replies Seung-gil drily.

Yuuri laughs, but he gets up from the stool anyway. “We really should leave you to it. Hoppang can keep you company for a while,” he says, before nodding towards the door. Christophe and Phichit both follow him out into the corridor, closing the door behind them

“This is amazing,” says Christophe quietly. “Maybe as he recovers, we’ll get to hear more.”

“That’s the hope,” agrees Yuuri. “Though I’m pretty sure the name Chris Bailey is just as much of an alias as ‘Hyung’.”

“Chris Bailey,” muses Christophe, whistling. “They _really_ want me to have an evil twin.”

“You’re taking it a lot better than Yuuri is,” Phichit notes. Yuuri glowers at him.

“That’s because whoever ‘Chris Bailey’ is, he’s not actually trying to be _our_ Chris,” he says.

“I love being talked about in the possessive,” Christophe chips in, and Yuuri pretends he doesn’t hear that as he fiddles with his phone.

 _My flight’s landing a little early, can’t wait to see you_! Viktor sends at that moment, and Yuuri can’t help but smile at that. He sends back a heart as a reply, before looking up to see Phichit and Christophe wearing matching shit-eating grins.

“Viktor’s flight got in early,” he says. “We’re going to dinner at the same time, but now I don’t have to worry that he might not make it.”

“That’s good.” Phichit beams at him, patting his arm. “We should probably take the night off. I’ll keep an eye on Seung-gil, and you two can go off and have fun.”

“That makes it sound like you’re expecting him to crash my dinner,” Yuuri grumbles.

“Where are you even going?” wonders Christophe, and Yuuri snorts at that.

“Like I’d tell you at this point,” he declares, before turning back to Phichit. “Are you sure you’ll be fine watching Seung-gil by yourself?”

“Definitely,” says Phichit. “We should let CiaoCiao and Leo know that he’s back, too; they’ll probably have questions.”

Yuuri nods, feeling lighter than he has since the case started. Finally, they’ve got a break in the case, a survivor willing to talk. Finally, Viktor is coming back to New York, and Yuuri in particular. Finally, he can crawl out of the haze of speculation and doubt surrounding so much of his life right now, and see what’s true and what’s the product of his own imagination.

Outside, the afternoon sun glints off the surface of distant skyscrapers, sparkles against the waters of the East River. For this brief moment, life is just the way it should be.

It doesn’t stay that way for very long, though.

* * *

_September 6th, 2017  
Momofuku Noodle Bar, New York City_

Viktor is supposed to pick him up at the hospital, but when Yuuri gets outside, the distinctive flash of silver hair is nowhere to be seen.

“He’s probably stuck in traffic,” Phichit says as he strides out after him with Hoppang pulling eagerly at her leash. “Where are you two getting dinner?”

“There’s a noodle bar down the street,” says Yuuri, checking his mobile. _Stuck in traffic :(_ , is the last message Viktor had sent him a couple minutes back, and it twinges at him in a way he doesn’t quite understand.

“Oh, that should be nice.” Phichit grins. “I might just grab something while I’m out walking Hoppang. Maybe get something for Seung-gil too — he’s clearly tired with hospital food.”

Yuuri chuckles at that. “You might get in trouble with the nurses,” he points out.

“He just escaped some creepy brainwashing cult full of your wannabe clones; he can eat whatever he likes,” retorts Phichit. Yuuri has to concede that argument; if that doesn’t warrant oneself a pass to eat whatever one likes, very little else in life will.

After a moment, though, Phichit sighs. “I hope he’ll be all right, though,” he says. “I mean, I’ll only be gone for a little while, probably like half an hour, tops. And he’ll be guarded, right? So there’s no way the unsub can sneak in and finish off the job.”

Yuuri pats Phichit’s shoulder. “He’s going to be fine,” he says, though deep down he feels a similar twinge of apprehension. “Tisch is a busy hospital, remember? The unsub isn’t going to be so stupid as to try and kill him with all those doctors and nurses and guards watching.”

Phichit huffs. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” he accuses, but he’s also smiling. Hoppang strains at the leash; Yuuri gives her a good rub behind the ears.

“Oh, what a cute dog!” exclaims a familiar voice. Yuuri turns, this time smiling brightly at Viktor, who has just pulled up to the curb and is peering over from the driver’s seat of a hot pink convertible.

“Oh my god,” says Phichit. Yuuri’s not sure whether he should laugh or promptly expire on the spot. He hasn’t seen anything less regulation since he was in undergrad. “Yuuri, if things don’t work out between you two could you give me his number?”

Viktor laughs, cheerily honking the horn. “I’m afraid I’ve only got eyes for Yuuri,” he declares, lowering his sunglasses to flash them both a wink. Phichit titters; Yuuri vaguely wonders if it’s not too late to retire from the FBI and move upstate to Vermont and farm alpacas instead. Because that would make just as much sense as a supermodel with clearly a ridiculous net worth declaring that he only has eyes for _Yuuri_.

“Well, I’ll leave you kids to it,” Phichit declares, peeling back from the curb and guiding Hoppang away from the posterior of a little brown dog that had just walked by. “Come on,” he says, and the husky trots off with him obediently, leaving Yuuri and Viktor alone together at the curb of a busy street in front of the hospital.

“Let’s go before NYPD tries to fine me for parking here,” Viktor suggests, and Yuuri laughs, clambering easily into the passenger side.

“I missed you,” he confesses almost as soon as they pull away from the curb. “I know I told you in text, but —”

“It sounds just as nice when you say it in person,” Viktor finishes, smiling briefly at him before heading up to the nearest intersection where he could make a u-turn. Yuuri lets the city air whip through his hair, closing his eyes and drowning for a moment in the sounds of the city.

“What sort of shows did you go to?” he asks. Viktor hums, raising the windows of the convertible so that the traffic noise is reduced somewhat.

“A bunch of different ones,” he says. “Several brands are rolling out new collections, several others are doing smaller shows, gallery exhibits. I recorded a small film with Salvatore Ferragamo the other day, for their new cologne ‘Stammi Vicino’.”

“Does it smell good?” asks Yuuri.

“Surprisingly floral,” replies Viktor. “I’m wearing it right now.” And at the next red light, he extends his hand. Yuuri takes it, hesitantly inhaling along the delicate skin of his wrist. Viktor sighs a little from next to him.

“It’s nice,” he says, though the words feel like an understatement compared to the way his stomach flutters at the easy intimacy between them. Viktor beams; Yuuri swallows and blushes as he lets Viktor’s hand go back to the steering wheel.

It takes them almost no time to get down to the block where the restaurant is, parking at a carpark just behind the building. The noodle bar in question is sleek and modern, its minimalistic wood features belying the exorbitant prices.

“It’s a little ridiculous, but the food is really good,” Viktor reassures Yuuri as he stares in disbelief at the menu. “It’s really hard to go wrong with the buns and the ramen.”

“Even the one with…” Yuuri squints, “Périgord truffles?”

“I actually really like the truffle ramen,” says Viktor, “but I admit, I don’t order it too often.”

“I’d have to rethink this if you did,” replies Yuuri, gesturing between the two of them, but there’s no serious judgement in his voice. At the table next to them, the smell of fried chicken wafts over to them. “What’s that?” Yuuri asks, gesturing at the platter of chicken in front of those guests.

“Oh, you’d need a reservation for that,” says Viktor, shrugging. “I didn’t think to order it, since I don’t know how much you eat, but —”

“Maybe next time,” Yuuri says quickly. Viktor’s eyes light up at the concept of ‘next time’, and Yuuri has to hide a smile behind his menu in response.

“We’d have to invite your colleagues if we wanna get that,” he points out. “It’s a large meal.”

“Probably,” agrees Yuuri, before returning to the drinks menu. Their server comes over for their drinks, and Yuuri orders a small glass of wine, while Viktor settles for a San Pellegrino.

“I’m driving,” he explains with a wink, and Yuuri chuckles. When their drinks arrive, they place their food orders, too, and then Yuuri excuses himself to go to the bathroom.

His heart is racing as he splashes water on his face, trying to collect himself over the tap and in front of the mirror. Soft, dreamy pop music filters into the room; Yuuri tries to slow down his breaths to the beat of the music, before running a hand through his hair and adjusting his glasses.

He’d tried to pick out his suit today with a little more attention to detail, but all he can think about right now is just how sweaty he is — how clammy his hands are, how his clothes stick haphazardly to his body. Viktor, who’s waiting outside, smells of expensive cologne and practically looks like a million bucks. When is he going to wake up and realise Yuuri couldn’t possibly hope to be as immaculate and put-together as him?

(When is Yuuri going to wake up from this strange dream that the day has inexplicably become?)

He exhales, rubs at his eyes. He has to go back outside. He can do this; he’s faced down monsters in human form and triumphed. He can conquer a little date with a supermodel.

“Oh god,” Yuuri wheezes. _Midsummer_ hadn’t been this stressful; there had been a show to watch and then discuss afterwards. The karaoke hadn’t been bad, either, because there had been the objective of beating Christophe and Phichit at singing. But this? This is dinner. He has to figure out conversation that doesn’t concern his work, or Viktor’s. He hasn’t had to think about this in such a long time that he’s genuinely terrified that Viktor will find him dull outside his supposedly glamourous job as a special agent.

But maybe the food will distract them. Maybe they could talk about dogs again. Yuuri takes a deep breath, rinses out his mouth. He probably stinks of hospital disinfectant, but there’s no helping that. Viktor is beautiful, almost untouchable, but perhaps for the rest of the evening Yuuri will try to lure such an angel down from the filament of heaven for a moment or two.

With a sigh, he exits the bathroom and retakes his seat, eyes lighting up at the sight of the bowl of ramen set in front of him. Viktor smiles over his plate of albacore tuna tataki, raising his chopsticks with a grin.

“Do you say ‘itadakimasu’ before you eat?” he asks.

“Only when I’m visiting my parents,” admits Yuuri with a chuckle. They dig in together, Yuuri pausing in his own eating to admire the elegance with which Viktor wields his chopsticks.

Viktor notices him staring after a moment before tossing his head to the side and beaming. “My mother thought I should know how to use them, just in case I ever had to wine and dine Chinese businessmen,” he replies.

“And have you had to?” asks Yuuri, arching an eyebrow. Viktor laughs.

“Countless,” he says. “And not just Chinese ones, too — South Korea’s fashion industry is probably more formidable, all things considered. I’ve been to several Seoul Fashion Weeks; they’re always so underrated.”

Yuuri tries not to think about Seung-gil. “What about Japanese businessmen?” he suggests.

“Would you count?” wonders Viktor.

Yuuri snorts. “Probably not.”

“Well, you’re at least much better company,” replies Viktor sweetly, resting his chin on his folded hands. “You’re much prettier, for one.”

Yuuri feels his cheeks warm at that. “Pretty isn’t exactly the first word people use to describe me,” he says, causing Viktor’s brows to furrow.

“Really?” he wonders, pouting. “Why not? You’re staggeringly exquisite.”

“And now you’re just pulling out big words at random,” rebukes Yuuri, and Viktor chuckles, reaching forward to take Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri offers it almost automatically, his stomach fluttering pleasantly as Viktor raises it to his lips, pressing soft kisses to the tips of his fingers.

“You’re clearly intelligent and perceptive; everyone knows that because of who you are and what you do,” he says. “But you also wake up every morning and look death in the eye without flinching. There’s beauty in your bravery; not everyone can do that, you know.”

Yuuri’s breath feels suspended in his lungs, frozen out of momentary shock. “I…” his entire face is warm, especially under his collar. “It’s just part of the job,” he demurs after a moment. “I’m just a dime-a-dozen agent; anyone else from the FBI in my shoes would do the same.”

“No, you’re one of a kind,” declares Viktor, as if it’s the absolute truth, and Yuuri has to actively suppress the unpleasant shiver that runs down his spine at that. If only Viktor knew what he had to deal with on a regular basis.

But he had promised himself not to discuss work during this dinner. So he pulls his hand back and gulps down a couple mouthfuls of ramen in lieu of responding, watching Viktor quitely return to his tataki with a soft sigh. They continue to eat in companionable silence, the tension in Yuuri’s stomach easing to something soft and golden.

“What do you like to do besides wear expensive clothes?” he asks after a moment. Viktor laughs at that, before going a little pensive.

“I walk Makkachin,” he says. “Read books in Russian and English. Take nice pictures for Instagram. Pretty boring stuff, really.”

“No way,” Yuuri says almost automatically. He adjusts his glasses, especially as Viktor’s eyebrows arch at that. “I mean — you’re not boring at all. You at least have a social life worthy of showing up on Instagram.”

“That’s just what people see,” replies Viktor almost dismissively. “Pretty little rich boy getting paid millions to model nice clothes and go to parties. Clearly _he’s_ got no problems in life.”

“Also not necessarily true,” Yuuri replies. “You might have less problems that have to do with money, but that doesn’t mean you have none.”

“It gets meaningless after a while,” agrees Viktor. “Glamour, aesthetics, money — all the things I was raised with, all the things I’d spent most of my life thinking were givens. But we all die the same, don’t we? We return to the same earth. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” A contemplative shadow passes over his delicate features, as he gingerly sips at his sparkling water. “There’s two things that the rich and the poor have in common.”

“Really,” states Yuuri, more than just a little fascinated. Viktor’s replying smile is gentle, heart-shaped, the corners of his warm blue eyes crinkling.

“Yeah. We fuck and die the same,” he says, and Yuuri snorts before he can stop it, nearly spewing his wine across the table. Viktor beams proudly, and Yuuri coughs into his napkin before he replies:

“That’s a very blunt way of putting it.”

“I suppose,” replies Viktor, shrugging. “But it’s not like I can tell anyone else these sorts of things, you know? There’s something about you that makes me want to be myself, truly and completely.”

“You don’t talk about sex and death with JJ?” Yuuri jokes, raising an eyebrow.

Viktor snorts. “I might have known him for years, but the last time I had a heart-to-heart with him I think we were both drunk, because I don’t remember any of it.”

“I know that feeling,” Yuuri replies, chuckling. Viktor hums, sipping at his water again.

“But it’s true, Yuuri. I don’t have a lot of time outside of my work to really connect with anyone, so it’s nice that we can do this. I know you’re terribly busy.”

“No, it’s —” Yuuri shakes his head, smiling. “It’s fine. We both need a break from our individual lives, don’t we? You want to get away from fashion, I want to get away from corpses —”

“Okay, now that you put it _that_ way, I clearly have less of an excuse.” Viktor waggles a chopstick at him, laughing. “I mean, sometimes some designers have some fucked up ideas for spreads, but not quite to the level of… what was it? Masked bodies lying around in public parks?”

“One of them was, yeah,” agrees Yuuri, shivering. “I’d rather not talk about it, though.”

“Eurgh, sounds gruesome.” Viktor shudders. “I completely understand.”

They continue their dinner in the same comfortable silence, Yuuri’s head buzzing with warmth from the good food and wine, and the heady excitement of Viktor’s company. Though they’d technically started the meal across from one another, as the night progresses Yuuri realises dimly that he’d moved closer to Viktor like a planet falling into orbit around a star. Viktor doesn’t complain about his closer proximity, though; at a lull in their eating, he looks up and smiles with just the slightest hint of ginger sauce on his lips, and Yuuri can’t help but lick his own.

“Is it just me,” he murmurs quietly, counting each flutter of Viktor’s silvery lashes against his pink cheeks, “or is it… kinda hard to breathe in here?”

“I was about to wonder if you’d stolen my breath away,” retorts Viktor, and Yuuri laughs a little helplessly at that, one thumb reaching out to swipe along the curve of Viktor’s lower lip.

“You can’t accuse me of something I haven’t done yet,” he teases, watching the way Viktor’s eyes widen at the touch, his mouth falling open almost automatically.

“Yet,” Viktor points out, beaming like a dog that got the bone. “So you’re at least guilty of attempted theft.”

“Really?” His lips are too close, and yet still too far. How is it possible that millimeters could be such a seemingly endless distance? “What am I trying to steal, Mr Prosecutor?”

“My heart,” replies Viktor. Yuuri laughs, because of course this man could make something so cheesy sound so sincere.

“I thought I already had that,” he says.

“A _ha_ ,” breathes Viktor. “Surely _that’s_ a confession, Agent Katsuki.”

Yuuri wants him to shut up and kiss him already, but before he could even open his mouth to say so, his phone rings. Startled, he pulls back, noting Viktor’s disappointed pout just before he checks the caller ID. It’s Phichit, and his stomach suddenly turns inside-out.

There’s no way Phichit would call him in the middle of a date if there wasn’t something terribly, horribly wrong.

“Hello?” he asks.

“ _Yuuri_.” Phichit’s voice is strained, wavering. “ _It’s Seung-gil_.”

Yuuri’s guts turn to ice, and the room suddenly _actually_ seems completely devoid of air. The ramen he’d just scarfed down churns deep within him. “Is something wrong?” he asks.

There’s a long, horrific rattle of breath. Over the static of the connection, Yuuri can hear frantic beeping, the scurrying of footsteps, a dim voice yelling for glucose.

Yuuri rises from the table before he even realises what he’s doing “Phichit, what’s going on?” he demands, just as he’s interrupted by a long, piteous howl over the speaker.

“ _Sir, I need you to remove the dog_ —”

There’s a click. Phichit has hung up. Yuuri’s hands tremble as he lowers his phone, and without further ado he grabs his jacket.

“Yuuri?” Viktor’s voice is quiet, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Sorry, I —” Yuuri adjusts his glasses, almost knocking them off his nose with how hard his hands are shaking. “I have to go. I’ll call an Uber — don’t let me ruin your meal —”

“Nonsense,” Viktor says immediately. “If you’re not here it’s already ruined.” With a swift, fluid motion, the supermodel rises to his feet, dropping several twenties onto the table without counting. “I’ll drive you; where do you need to go?”

“Back to the hospital,” breathes Yuuri as Viktor shrugs on his coat and guides him out of the restaurant. “I’m so sorry, something came up —”

“Yuuri.” Viktor’s hands are warm against his shoulders. “You have _nothing_ to be sorry about. Whatever happened can’t possibly be your fault.”

The image of Yun Xiao, lying under a tree with a Noh mask done up to look like Yuuri’s own face, flashes in front of his eyes. “It is,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s all my fault.”

Viktor purses his lips, but says nothing as he hurries them to the carpark. The evening stream of people does nothing to slow Yuuri on the sidewalk, and Viktor follows steadily in his wake. Yuuri is half-tempted to grab his hand to make sure they aren’t separated in this crucial moment, but there is no room in his heart for such a gesture at this moment.

Viktor unlocks the car just as Yuuri reaches it, forgoing any gentlemanly gesture of opening the door for Yuuri as he climbs into the driver’s side. “Back to the hospital?” he confirms.

Yuuri nods, already half inside the passenger seat. Viktor only pauses to let him buckle up before he’s zooming out of the carpark, the motor loudly roaring in the silence.

“Are you sure this is the speed limit?” Yuuri gasps as soon as Viktor clears the turnstile with only some mild cursing in Russian. Someone honks at them as Viktor abruptly tears out in front of them onto the street.

“Speed limits are moot when it’s an emergency,” Viktor replies, his teeth gritted and his knuckles white on the wheel as he turns left again onto 2nd Ave, and again onto East 10th. Another person honks when Viktor cuts them off on 1st, and Yuuri is sorely tempted to stick his arm out the window and flash them his badge.

Unfortunately, whatever time Viktor had bought them with his reckless driving evaporates at the sight of a sluggish procession of red tail lights inching along in front of them. Yuuri drums his fingers across the dashboard irritably, looking fretfully down at his phone.

Phichit calls him again, and Yuuri answers almost immediately. “I’m on my way,” he prefaces, words cutting off with a screech as Viktor slams on the brakes. Startled, Yuuri accidentally presses the ‘end call’ button.

“Is everything all right?” Viktor asks again.

“No, please…” The words ‘hurry’ fade as he stares at the cars in front of them again. As they slowly inch past a billboard advertising an upcoming performance of _Richard III_ , Yuuri adds, “My kingdom for a police siren.”

Viktor glances in that direction and laughs. “Fan of Shakespeare?” he asks. “First _Midsummer_ , now _Richard III_.”

“His stories are an interesting examination of human nature,” replies Yuuri. “Plus, I’ve actually dealt with a case that was basically _Titus Andronicus_.”

Viktor arches an eyebrow. “Someone’s tongue and hands got cut off?” he asks.

“And then baked into a pie, and literally left on our doorstep,” replies Yuuri. “Phichit and I swore off baked goods for a month, which unfortunately coincided with one of our mutual friends developing a pregnancy craving for kidney pie.”

Viktor snorts. “Well, hopefully their pies didn’t come from any murder victims,” he says.

“I think the offal her husband used was locally sourced,” Yuuri mutters.

“People do strange things for love,” Viktor remarks, and then turns back to the slowly-progressing traffic.

Yuuri’s phone suddenly buzzes, and he pulls it out to see a notification of a car crash at the intersection of 1st and 14th. “Fuck,” he swears, and when Viktor makes a questioning noise, he explains, “there’s an accident up ahead.”

Viktor turns on the radio at that moment just as the sigalert comes on: “ _Nasty four-car pile-up at the intersection of 1st Ave and East 14th Street_ —” and he swears quietly as well.

“We’re not gonna be moving for a while,” he laments. “I’m so sorry, Yuuri —”

“How far is it from here to Tisch?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor frowns. “Maybe 8 blocks? It’s a straight shot, so —”

Yuuri’s already unbuckling his seatbelt. “I’m sorry for ditching you here, Viktor,” he says, and without further ado, he’s running out of the car, only pausing to slam the door as he races out to the sidewalk. He can hear Viktor shouting his name over the irritable honking all around, but he doesn’t look back.

His phone rings again as he’s halfway up the first block, but he has no time to stop and answer now. It’s been a while since he was last forced to run a six-minute mile; he prays to every deity he knows — and maybe the old drill sergeants at Quantico — that he can still do it.

He almost collides with a taxi at East 20th, but he rolls across the front and continues on, ignoring the driver’s exasperated cursing as he continues to tear along the sidewalk, pushing past restaurant-goers with hurried apologies. His heart is already thumping loudly in his throat; his side is starting to burn.

Secretly, he vows to cut back on the junk food like he’s promised himself for the past five New Years’ if he can make it to Tisch in time.

By the time the hospitals come into view, Yuuri knows that intellectually, he’d only been running for a couple minutes. However, based on the agonizing burn in his side, it feels like it’s been an eternity, especially given the number of people and cars he’s almost collided with. A brief glance at his mobile as he races past Bellevue Hospital shows six missed calls and ten vaguely panicked texts.

Finally, he’s rushing into Tisch, almost slamming into the glass sliding doors as he does so. The receptionist takes one glance at him, recoils in obvious horror at his dishevelled appearance and heavy breathing, and wordlessly points towards the elevator.

Yuuri only rasps a “thanks” as he takes the stairs instead.

He finally bursts onto the floor where Seung-gil’s room is, clutching at his side as he struggles to catch his breath. His feet feel like they’re bleeding; his heart pounds achingly in his chest as he races the last few feet to the room and slams open the door.

The first thing he hears is the loud, frantic beeps. Then he sees a nurse, continuously pressing against a figure lying on the bed. Then the sound of electricity, the word “clear”, the sickening crunch.

Phichit’s in the corner, his face pallid with fury and horror as he presses the muzzle of his gun against the back of Sara Crispino’s head. At his feet, Hoppang is whining into her own muzzle, chafing at her leash with her snout pointed towards the bed.

Then the frantic beepings ease into one long, heart-rending beep as the frantic spikes of the monitor flatline, and the doctors and nurses step back, their heads bowed.

Just before the sheet is pulled over Seung-gil’s head, Yuuri can see his eyes staring, distorted brown and bloodshot, towards Phichit’s ashen face. Those eyes, which had so reviled him over the past five days, horrify him even more now.

After all, at least in the past they had been alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: eye horror, inflicted disability (blindness), brainwashing, kidnapping, nonconsensual drug use, psychological manipulation, psychological horror, torture, minor character death (sorry), sad Phichit, sadder Hoppang
> 
> Wrath: If it's any comfort, I'm like, a smidgen sorry.  
> Lily: I'm actually really sorry. It was for the plot.  
> Wrath: Also, please don't google 'contacts left in eyes too long'. I did it so you don't have to. A skinned face is fine, but that was disgusting.  
> Lily: ... A skinned face is fine?  
> Wrath: ...That sounded bad, didn't it?  
> Lily: Yes. Yes it did.
> 
> (Those last two lines are a recurring thing here)


	6. Watching Over You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings at the end of this chapter.

_September 6th, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

“ _Central to Officer 9183. Central to Officer 9183. Detective Seung-gil Lee, please respond. Central to Officer 9183. Officer 9183, no response. Officer 9183, Seung-gil Lee, is end of watch. He has gone home for the final time._ ”

Yuuri, Phichit, and Christophe stand alongside the rest of the officers of the 24th Precinct as the final call fades to static. Finally, after a long moment of silence, Captain Cialdini clears his throat.

“Shrouds will be available for your badges,” he begins, before his voice falters somewhat. Next to him, Hoppang whines, but no one has the heart to quiet her. “We have contacted Detective Lee’s family, and they are expected to arrive in the morning. Volunteers for watches at Detective Lee’s apartment and casket can sign up with Detective de la Iglesia.”

Next to Yuuri, Phichit hides his face in Christophe’s shoulder. Captain Cialdini’s expression softens when he looks over, before turning back towards the rest of the precinct.

“We still need to interrogate the suspect in custody,” Leo says, and Yuuri looks over at the door to the interrogation room, where Sara is waiting.

Phichit looks up at that, his eyes red but determined. “Leave it to us,” he says.

* * *

Sara Crispino is calm and collected as she stares across the cold metal table in the interrogation room.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” says Phichit, his voice like ice. “Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Sara. She barely flinches, as Phichit slams a fist down onto the table in front of her.

“I saw you do it. All the security cameras saw you do it. Just admit it — you were caught red-handed with your finger on the plunger.”

“I’m not talking to you until I have my lawyer present,” deadpans Sara, and Phichit groans audibly, rising out of his chair and striding to the one-way mirror. In the other room, Yuuri can see how haggard his friend’s expression is through the tinted glass.

His phone pings with a text. _It’s fine, no worries_ , Viktor says in response to the apology Yuuri had texted him an hour ago. _What happened?_

 _Sorry, can’t tell you :(_ , Yuuri replies, his fingers flying automatically across the keys.

 _Classified? ;)_ , he gets in response.

 _Yes_. Yuuri swallows, wanting to pocket his phone, but Viktor’s bubble is typing again, and he’s caught between it and the scene unfolding in the interrogation room in front of him. There’s a cough, and from the corner of his eye Yuuri sees Christophe looking concernedly at him.

 _Okay_ , says Viktor, understanding and patient. _Let me know if you need to talk :) You don’t have to go through this alone_.

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat at that, warmth creeping through his chest as he pockets his phone, crosses his arms, and turns his attention back to Phichit and Sara.

“Hospital security footage has also shown us that you’re the one responsible for escorting a Mr Nguyen out onto the hospital roof, leading to his death. I don’t know what gets a nursing license revoked, but I strongly suspect at _least_ two charges of murder 1 will do the trick.”

“At least?” she drawls, arching an eyebrow.

Phichit smiles. It is not a nice smile. “Eight,” he replies, “if we count your work as the Couture Cutter —”

“That wasn’t me,” Sara snaps, immediately defensive.

“Oh, really?” wonders Phichit. “Then why did you kill Detective Lee? The only motive I can imagine for that is if you’re the Couture Cutter and you want to keep him silent.”

“I _didn’t_ do it,” insists Sara.

Phichit scoffs. “Oh, so we’re back to this.” He leans forward on the table, pressing into her space with an uncharacteristic, knife-sharp steel in his posture. “Perhaps I should recommend to the DA the maximum penalty this state can offer for a murderer like you, then,” he spits. “Or, even better — some of the Couture Cutter’s victims come from states that _do_ allow the death penalty —”

“I’m not him!” exclaims Sara, her handcuffs chafing against the chair as she attempts to throw her hands up in exasperation.

Phichit pauses. “So you know the Couture Cutter?” he prods.

“Or her,” amends Sara hastily. “I dunno. Most serial killers are men.”

“Well,” says Phichit, every word clearly venomous, “clearly your lack of remorse shows that you fit into the 11% that _are_ female.”

Sara opens her mouth as if to respond, but then grits her teeth and looks away. “I’m done talking to you without my lawyer,” she repeats.

“It’s not her,” Yuuri mutters. Phichit pauses, as if asking him to repeat that. “It’s not her, Phi. She doesn’t fit the profile. She’s definitely involved, though. Let her call her lawyer.”

Leo comes in to escort Sara out to make her call. Phichit slumps the instant the door closes behind them, hanging his head as he sighs out his frustration. Yuuri fidgets in the next room; Phichit has clearly had a very taxing past couple of hours, to say the least, and perhaps letting him continue the interrogation while he’s so high-strung will not bode well for any of them farther down the line.

“Perhaps I should continue the interview,” he says.

“No,” says Phichit, looking up but not turning around. “I can do it.”

“You just watched your ex-boyfriend die at the hands of our suspect,” Yuuri points out bluntly. “You’re not in a fit mental state to conduct anything, especially an interrogation of said suspect.”

“She was right there,” snaps Phichit, shaking his head. “Right _there_ , Yuuri — I’d just finished walking Hoppang around the block when I came back to see her injecting him with something, and given how she’d dropped the syringe and he started shaking I realised it was something bad, so I arrested her on the spot and pressed the panic button, and — and they tried everything, those nurses and doctors, and it still _wasn’t enough_.” Half of the anger seems to be directed at himself. “I took my eyes off him for a couple minutes and now he’s _dead_.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Yuuri says, though the words feel rote, memorised by dint of having it being repeated at him over and over again since the start of the case. If all of this is anyone’s fault, it’s Yuuri’s — but no one seems willing to let him own up to that.

“I should’ve stayed. I should’ve asked someone to walk Hoppang for me. I shouldn’t have let down my guard.” Phichit slams his hand on the table. “I called his parents, you know? Told them we’d found him, and that he was alive but on the mend? What are they going to say now? They’re flying all the way back now just to find their son dead!”

“You need to take the night off.” Christophe’s voice is sudden; Phichit startles in the other room before turning around to stare contemplatively at the glass. “I’m sorry, but I agree with Yuuri here. You’re not on your A game; Seung-gil wouldn’t want his killer to walk just because you mess up during the interrogation process or something.”

A pause. Phichit pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs deeply into the microphone enabling their conversation with him. “You’re right,” he says, after a moment. “I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“Come back here and let Yuuri question her,” says Christophe gently, and Phichit acquiesces, leaving the interrogation room and showing up in theirs. The moment he enters, Christophe has his arms open, and Phichit walks straight into them with a sniffle.

Yuuri, too, walks over to pat Phichit’s shoulder, watching the other man’s body become wracked with sobs. “She’s hiding something,” he says to Christophe, nodding back towards the interrogation room where Leo is now re-cuffing Sara to the table. Sara asks for water, which Leo nods at tersely before leaving. Yuuri steps over and switches off the microphone in the room.

“What’s she trying to hide?” asks Christophe, now rubbing soothing circles into Phichit’s back.

“Her connection to the unsub, probably,” says Yuuri. “Among other things. I looked into Tisch’s death records; there’s been a couple other deaths under her watch, most notably a Mr Jonathan Chang from six years ago.”

“Let me guess, he fits the victimology,” says Christophe. Yuuri shows him the pictures, and he whistles. “Yeah, dang. Not quite the dead ringer as some of the recent ones have been but…” he trails off. “You think he’s one of our unsub’s earlier works?”

“Imperfect, too,” replies Yuuri. “The bruising isn’t something we’ve seen before. Blunt force trauma — maybe he was trying to perfect his brainwashing technique back then, and Mr Chang was only a guinea pig.”

The door to the observation room opens again, and a handsome Greek man with a noticeably unruly mess of curls that clashes with the the professional cut of his suit comes striding in — clearly the lawyer that Sara has retained. He pulls out a card from somewhere and offers it to them, along with a handshake. “Dimos Wallen. I represent Ms Crispino,” he introduces himself brusquely.

The name sounds awfully familiar. Christophe squints next to Yuuri, reaching out to take the card. “I’ve seen your name in the papers before… don’t you usually take care of corporate law and money fraud cases?”

Mr Wallen nods. “I do represent employees of Tisch Hospital from time to time,” he explains, “Defending doctors and nurses against upset patients or families of patients.”

Phichit smiles at that, tight-lipped and without a drop of good humour in it. “Well, that’s one way to put what’s on the table for Crispino,” he says. Yuuri notices Christophe lean in closer to Phichit to comfort him.

Mr Wallen simply nods again, then turns and nods at the room which Sara is in. “I will speak with my client now,” he declares.

“Of course,” Yuuri says, and Wallen heads out of the observation room. The three of them watch as he enters the interrogation room, with Leo shortly behind him with the water that Sara requested. Leo closes the door behind them, before knocking at their door.

“We went through her purse, her car. We’ll probably search her apartment, too,” he says, when Yuuri opens the door.

“She’s been caught on camera and by Phichit,” Christophe points out. “What would be the point?”

“Her connection to the unsub,” says Yuuri, watching as the lawyer talks with Sara in the other room, leaning over the table to ensure some privacy. “I mean, unless you guys think she just finally snapped because Seung-gil said one too many disparaging things about her coffee and care and killed him just to get back at him.”

“Well, she did get a call from a blocked number that she took for about two minutes, thirty minutes prior to her injecting Seung-gil,” says Leo, holding up an evidence baggie with her mobile phone contained inside. Yuuri notices his haggard expression, his bloodshot eyes. “I’m not saying it’s the unsub, considering we don’t have call logs, but the timing is interesting to say the least.”

Yuuri grits his teeth. “She’s not going to tell us, but perhaps he will,” he says.

A pause. “He?” echoes Christophe.

“The unsub,” says Yuuri. “We can force him to make a move right now.”

“How so?” asks Leo, putting his hands on his hips.

Yuuri also does the same, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction curl up his spine. “We set her up to take the fall for his killings.”

Another pause. “DA Park’s not going to agree to that,” Phichit says, his voice muffled against Christophe’s shoulder. Yuuri sighs.

“You’ve done it in counterterrorism before,” he points out, “using a smaller fish as bait for larger fish.”

“Usually that’s to make the larger fish paranoid that the smaller fish is cooperating with the police to reveal who they are,” Phichit points out. “I don’t think Ms Crispino’s _that_ connected to the unsub.”

“She may not be,” agrees Yuuri. “But setting her up to take credit for his work is bound to get him to react in some way. Either he drops his guard and makes a mistake, or he lashes out. Either way, it’s getting him to react to us, versus us merely reacting to him.”

Phichit sighs. “Should I call the DA’s office, then?” he asks. In the room, Mr Wallen turns around and knocks at the pane into the observation room, signalling their readiness to continue the interrogation.

Yuuri nods. “Call her,” he says, “and then go home.”

* * *

_September 7th, 2017  
New York County Criminal Court, New York City_

Min-so Park, the New York County District Attorney, is a professional-looking woman with a very determined set to her jaw as she glares across the aisle at Sara Crispino. A bevy of Assistant District Attorneys flit around her, some of them presenting their own arraignments up ahead. Yuuri swallows, somehow reminded of Seung-gil in her laconic expression.

“You better hope this works.” Ms Park’s brow is furrowed. “We’re charging her with six counts of murder she most likely didn’t commit, according to your own investigation. If this gets out —”

“The unsub will act first,” says Yuuri, staring past the shoulder of her sharply-cut navy blazer. “There are still two charges you can definitely pin her for. Agent Chulanont caught her in the act of one of them.”

“So we drop the six Couture Cutter killings as soon as the unsub comes forward somehow,” Ms Park purses her lips. “Something tells me he’s not going to turn himself in to prove you wrong.”

“We’ll see,” says Yuuri, just as the gavel resounds for the defendants who had just been arraigned.

“Case number 24601, the People versus Sara Crispino,” announces the clerk, handing over a set of papers to the judge. Ms Park stands, alongside Sara and Mr Wallen. “Eight counts of first degree felony murder.”

“How do you plead, Ms Crispino?” the judge asks, staring down the lens of her half-moon glasses.

“My client pleads not guilty, Your Honour,” replies Mr Wallen.

“And what does the People say to bail?” asks the judge.

“Ms Crispino is clearly a very dangerous individual,” replies Ms Park without any semblance of emotion on her face. “She was seen on hospital security footage and by witnesses committing two out of the eight counts of murder the People are charging her with. The People ask for remand.”

The judge’s eyes narrow at that. “You have a response to that, Mr Wallen?”

“The People have no proof that my client committed six of the murders she is charged with,” declares Mr Wallen. “Prior to this, she has been a nurse in good standing at several hospitals. We request release on bail.”

Ms Park scoffs. “One of the confirmed victims of Ms Crispino was a police detective, who had recently been the victim of kidnap and torture by Ms Crispino in her capacity as the Couture Cutter,” she points out. “The People _ask_ for _remand_.”

“Objection, Your Honour: the People are making unsubstantiated claims that my client is the Couture Cutter,” rebuts Mr Wallen.

The judge pauses, considers it. “Sustained. However, while I do agree that the current evidence surrounding the Couture Cutter case is insufficient to tie Ms Crispino to those killings, I find myself siding with the People in favour of remand simply because of her last known victim. The request for bail is denied; Ms Crispino is to be remanded as per the People’s request. The case will be subject to a preliminary hearing in five days’ time.”

The sound of the gavel is loud against the wood. Yuuri stands to leave, but Ms Park takes him by the arm as she heads up the aisle. “You hear that?” she asks, her eyes flinty as they bore into his own. “The judge wants a preliminary hearing before they send the case to the grand jury. People know you’re forcing Ms Crispino to take the fall to bring the unsub out of hiding. You better hope this doesn’t get fucked up beyond any of our control.”

Yuuri watches as Sara is led away by the detainment officers. There will be reporters outside waiting for the arraignment results; Sara will be forced to walk in front of all of them on her way back to prison.

He swallows, feeling his stomach churn. “I hope so, too,” he says. Ms Park nods brusquely, before arranging her notes and departing the courtroom in brisk strides. Yuuri follows in her wake, a strange anticipatory foreboding settling thick upon his heart.

He catches a glimpse of Sara as she is led out of the courthouse by the detainment officers back to the prison van. The reporters’ cameras flash wildly, but what is more unsettling are the looming figures of New York’s law enforcement officers. Captain Cialdini is among them, imperious even in his suit. The faces of all of the police officers gathered are stony, like the statues of saints upon cathedral walls as they judge a sinner down below.

After the pictures of Sara make it out to the news, it’ll only be a matter of time…

* * *

_September 14th, 2017  
New York County Criminal Court, New York City_

“… _A preliminary hearing is being conducted today for former Tisch Hospital employee Sara Crispino, who was allegedly caught in the act of murdering NYPD detective Seung-gil Lee in connection with the Couture Cutter killings. However, Manhattan District Attorney Min-so Park also hopes to be able to indict Ms Crispino for the Couture Cutter killings, though the evidence for that is reportedly slim_ …”

Yuuri watches through the courthouse windows as the reporters gather on the steps, waiting in clear anticipation like sharks around a bucket of chum. The tension seems palpable; everyone is on tenterhooks for the decision on whether or not the case will appear before a grand jury in a couple days’ time.

Phichit is inside, testifying about his actions on the night of the 6th. Yuuri fidgets with the cuffs of the suit; once again he checks his messages for any new texts from Viktor. All he had gotten since the date was an apology for a sudden departure from New York:

_I hate to leave you, but an old friend has recently passed away :( I’m going to his funeral in France and will be back as soon as I can. We can try another date when I get back? ;)_

Yuuri had texted his assent, but since then it has been radio silence. No doubt Viktor was in mourning as well, for whichever old friend this was. He tried checking the news, but every time he does all he sees instead is coverage on the arrest and arraignment of the Couture Cutter.

He sneaks back into the courtroom during a lull in the proceedings. Phichit has finished his testimony, it seems, but has not yet left the stand; the judge is perusing documents that Ms Park has given her. On the defense side, Sara Crispino fidgets with her hair.

There’s suddenly a commotion at the back of the courthouse. The door slams open, and Yuuri can hear the screeching of tires from outside. Alarmed, he leaps to his feet, even as the judge looks up with one hand on the gavel purely out of instinct.

“What was that?” Phichit asks, appearing at Yuuri’s side, but Yuuri is already in motion, running past the doors and into the sunlit corridor. From the window, he can see the reporters swarming around something at the base of the courthouse stairs as a white van screeches off down the street.

Leo runs by, barking orders into his radio. “I need all available units to chase down a suspect in a white van, heading down Centre Street past the courthouse. I repeat, suspect is in a white van, heading down Centre Street towards Canal!”

Yuuri chases after him, but Leo takes the steps two at a time as he heads out to the police car parked at the curb, turning on the sirens before he even pulls away. The reporters catch sight of Yuuri just outside the courthouse doors, and call out to him.

“Agent Katsuki, was that an accomplice?” someone yells. Yuuri ignores him as he shoves past the frenzied crowd to see a black duffel bag lying on the sidewalk. Immediately his heart springs into his throat, and his phone into his hand.

“Everyone clear back!” Yuuri screams, sweeping one arm to the side as he calls the field office with the other.  “I need a bomb squad at 100 Centre Street; suspect has dropped an unmarked duffel bag!”

Thankfully, even the reporters have either the good sense or the self-preservation to retreat several yards away while Yuuri stays warily near the bag itself. He doesn’t hear any timer, or see any other indication that the bag may contain an explosive, but he takes no chances.

It’s not even five minutes before a series of vans appear, agents dressed in tactical gear pouring out of them. One holds the leash of a German Shepherd, whose tail is wagging as his handler leads him out of the van. Yuuri steps back as they converge on the bag. The detection dog sniffs the bag, but doesn’t sit down, cocking his head almost as if in confusion.

A murmur runs through the agents, before one kneels down and slowly peels back the zipper. Seeing the way the agent stiffens, Yuuri steps forward, and the bomb squad lets him through.

The agent that opened the bag looks up at him, his expression visibly grey through the mask. “This sure isn’t a bomb, Agent Katsuki,” he says, casting one last look before climbing gravely to his feet and rejoining his comrades.

A sinking feeling climbs up from the pit of Yuuri’s stomach, dropping out of his mouth and somewhere near the corpse in the duffel bag with a soft, “ _Fuck_.”

Flowers burst out of the bag, pour out of a chest with their petals somehow barely bruised despite having been crammed in such a small space. A pair of hands rest underneath them on the corpse’s stomach, its fingernails removed with white roses shoved in the cuticles.

A scream builds in Yuuri’s throat as he drags his eyes upwards. The mouth gapes in a tongueless scream, as if the man had died in pain and continued to feel the agony of his chest being repurposed as a flower vase in the afterlife.

It’s the eyes that get Yuuri to reel back, struck with the memory of Seung-gil opening his own eyes that day in the hospital. The eyelids are pulled open, nothing but vitreous humour oozing from around the spider lilies carefully planted where the irises should be.

For a moment, Yuuri’s adrift, struck in horror at the delicately assembled ikebana arrangement that the unsub had turned this man into. Unwittingly, admiration blooms too, but he prunes it away with a clench of his fist, tearing his gaze from the body.

“Oh my god,” he hears someone say. For a moment, he thinks that it’s from his own mouth, but then Phichit appears in his field of vision, kneeling to look at the body as well.

“Agent Katsuki, is this the work of the Couture Cutter?” one reporter screams from behind the human wall the bomb squad has formed around the body.

The world holds its breath alongside Yuuri as he looks up, slowly rising to his feet. He feels like he’s on some crumbling mountain slope, not on the flat concrete of the courthouse sidewalk. Slowly, he catches his mental footing, adjusting his glasses and turning in the direction of the reporters. His eyes drift sidewards still, at the courthouse.

“Call the medical examiner,” he tells the closest of the bomb squad in lieu of an answer. “Do _not_ let the media near the body.”

With that, he starts towards the courthouse, formulating what to tell the District Attorney even as he shrugs off the questions of the press with silence. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Mr Minami, brimming with wide-eyed excitement. Bile rises to his throat, but he swallows it down and strides past the younger man without a word.

* * *

_September 14, 2017  
Tisch Hospital, New York City_

Yuuri is really starting to hate Tisch Hospital.

“Leo just called us about the van,” says Phichit as they pull up in front of the hospital that evening, striding in and heading straight towards the medical examiner’s office. The hospital staff eye them warily, some even with hostility — Sara had been popular, even if she _was_ guilty of at least two counts of murder.

“Did they get it?” asks Yuuri.

“The van’s plates were registered to a Ms Ventas, but when we contacted her she said she’d reported the vehicle stolen a couple days ago,” says Phichit. “Interestingly enough, she’s a florist.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow at that. “I doubt that there’s any connection between her and the flowers,” he says, “Judging by your tone, they couldn’t get the van?”

Phichit clicks his tongue as he shakes his head. “The van went up Canal and across the Holland Tunnel before NYPD could set up a roadblock,” he explains. “Jersey police did recover the van eventually at a garage in Hoboken, but the only prints on the wheel belong to the ones Ms Ventas volunteered and one of her employees that did deliveries with it. Witnesses say that the man that tossed the duffel was wearing a ski mask and gloves, and we didn’t get any prints off the bag. The driver definitely wore gloves too.”

No surprise there. Yuuri sighs, as Dr Nekola wheels out the newest body. The flowers have been cleared, but a distinct scent of rose can still be smelt above the chemicals somehow. “What do you have for us?” Yuuri asks, though it’s more of a formality at this point. It’s pretty obvious what’s been done.

Dr Nekola looks at his clipboard. “20 white lilies, 8 spider lilies, and 24 white roses.” He looks back down at the body, the chest cavity open. “Lungs, heart, and diaphragm were removed with near-surgical precision, sternum was cracked to make it easier to remove the organs. All of this was done postmortem.”

Gesturing to the face and hands, he continues. “The removal of the tongue and fingernails and the bursting of the eyes were all done antemortem. The cause of death for this one was the tongue removal, actually. Judging by irritation in the stomach lining, he ended up swallowing his own blood and vomiting as a result. But since he was on his back, he asphyxiated on it.”

Phichit makes a slightly strangled noise, his expression screwing up with disgust.

Yuuri stares down at the body. “Honestly, I think I’ve transcended disgust at this point, after Mr Xiao’s body.” _And Seung-gil’s eyes_ , he doesn’t say.

Phichit mutters something that sounds like, “Mood.” Clearing his throat, he nods at the body. “What about the time of death?”

“It’s a little tricky considering that the unsub embalmed him, but I’d probably put it at about ten days ago?” Dr Nekola frowns. “Basically the unsub ordered Ms Crispino to kill Detective Lee and then he went off and killed Mr Shieh here.”

“Mr Shieh?” asks Phichit. “You got an ID?”

“Dental records,” says Dr Nekola. “Taiwanese businessman based in San Francisco, reported missing by his daughter about three years ago.”

“Oh, that’s going to be rough,” Phichit mutters, and Yuuri can’t help but agree.

He gestures to the cavity, where there’s still a couple specks of dirt lying between the ribs. “Did you guys get anything from the dirt?” he asks.

“The soil’s from the Adirondacks,” replies Dr Nekola. “Similar to the scrapings we got from under Detective Lee’s nails.”

“And the flowers?”

“Purchased, definitely.” Dr Nekola gestures to the tray full of them. There’s a suit jacket next to them; Yuuri peers closer and notices a ‘Dolce & Gabbana’ label. Vaguely, he remembers JJ Leroy bragging about modelling for them, and shivers. “The roses are de-thorned, the lilies are missing their anthers. I’d say the work of a professional florist.”

“Sure you don’t wanna look into the owner of the van?” Phichit asks.

“Anyone could’ve chopped up the flowers,” Yuuri says. “And I really doubt the unsub would’ve stolen a van from the same place he got the flowers from.”

“But maybe one of these flower shops got a good look at him, or delivered to a sketchy location that could be this unsub’s hideout,” says Phichit. Yuuri can tell he’s a little desperate; grasping at every possible lead that presents itself to him out of this body.

“Or he didn’t even get them from New York City. We’re not using the Bureau’s time and money to interrogate every florist in the tri-state area,” says Yuuri, patting his partner’s shoulder. “The unsub has been planning this since he ordered Sara to kill Seung-gil. There’s no love in this, just mockery. Taunting us for getting off track and trying to pin his work on his accomplice.”

“So you believe she was his accomplice,” says Phichit.

“They’ve definitely had enough contact with each other for him to pull something as risky as dropping a body at the courthouse in broad daylight on the day of her preliminary hearing,” Yuuri points out. “He doesn’t want her to take credit for his work, but he also doesn’t want her to take the fall for him. It’s a… weird sort of affection, actually, one caught between arrogance and companionship. Maybe he mentored her for a while.”

“In what, murder?” demands Phichit.

“We wouldn’t have caught her if she was his murder apprentice,” Yuuri replies. “Besides, she clearly has a different signature than him.”

“Signature?” echoes Phichit. “You’ve —”

“The other hospital deaths under her watch, remember?” says Yuuri. “All of them were ruled as accidental, suicidal, or natural causes. No whiff of foul play, until now.”

“Until Seung-gil?”

“Well, yes, and Mr Nguyen.” Yuuri pushes his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. “Ms Crispino doesn’t actually have a particular preference for gender or race. Her targets are the weak, the elderly, the already dying.”

“So an Angel of Death killer,” Phichit says, with a sigh. “You know how ridiculous this is, Yuuri? We caught a serial killer, but we caught the _wrong_ serial killer.”

“Well, at least the DA will have plenty to charge her for, even if we couldn’t get her for the Couture Cutter killings,” replies Yuuri. “It’s not a complete waste of time.”

“Yeah, I just.” Phichit sighs again, rubbing at his temples. “Knowing Mr Wallen, though, he’ll probably take this as an opportunity to cut a deal with the DA. She’ll probably get her charges reduced to second degree for being an accomplice. Like she didn’t have a _choice_ not to kill Seung-gil.”

“If she gets a deal, she might at least have information for us in her confession,” Yuuri points out. “And you can’t blame Mr Wallen for doing his job.”

“Are you sure?” demands Phichit. “My counterterrorism senses tingle every time we’re in the same room as him.”

“That sounds like racial profiling,” cuts in Emil. The two of them pause to look at him, and he adds, “Sorry.”

“He has a point, you know,” Yuuri says. Phichit sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I guess I’m still on edge from, you know.” He gestures vaguely down towards the body. “Maybe I need a break. I don’t know how you’re holding up, Yuuri.”

“A lot of coffee and duct tape,” deadpans Yuuri, just as his phone pings with another message. “Oh, and Viktor.”

“Lucky you,” mutters Phichit.

Yuuri quirks an eyebrow. “You have Chris, don’t you?” he wonders.

Phichit snorts. “I mean, I guess, if you count ‘flirting’ as ‘having’, but —”

Dr Nekola interrupts them both by clearing his throat. “If you two are moving onto other topics, I can put the body away,” he offers.

Yuuri feels his cheeks heat up at that. “Sorry,” he says, adjusting his glasses before gesturing to the suit jacket. “So, anything else?”

* * *

_September 16, 2017  
Momofuku Milk Bar, New York City_

There isn’t much else to say afterwards, so Phichit and Yuuri decide to call it a day and head back to the field office to pick up Christophe.

A couple blocks down 2nd Ave, however, Phichit gets distracted by the bright neon lights of a milk bar, and begs Yuuri to pull up to the curb so they can make a milkshake run. “I’ve been dreaming about these milkshakes for _five years_ , Yuuri,” he exclaims as they step out into the brisk autumn wind only to collide with a pile of soft brown curls eagerly barking at them.

“Makkachin?” Yuuri demands, and the poodle wags his tail. Yuuri’s heart skips a beat as he looks in through the window; sure enough the tall, willowy silhouette of Makkachin’s owner is pressed against the window, bathed in warm golden light. Phichit’s eyebrows raise in mischief, and before Yuuri even realises what’s going on he’s been forcibly shoved into the shop with the door resolutely held shut behind him.

“Phichit!” Yuuri snaps, pounding at the door. “I don’t even know what you and Chris want!”

The door briefly swings open. “I want the birthday cake, and Chris would probably like the chocolate cereal,” Phichit instructs, passing over a twenty. Yuuri clutches onto it helplessly as the door then swings shut, and his partner — damn him — flashes his badge at someone else who wants to go in, effectively stopping them in their tracks.

“Yuuri?”

“We keep meeting like this, don’t we?” Yuuri asks, still facing the door. Viktor huffs in amusement from behind him, though he makes no other moves towards him.

“Phichit seems to be taking his job as door guardian very responsibly,” Viktor remarks. “Are you sure that isn’t an abuse of the Bureau’s power?”

“He’s been feeling a bit down lately,” Yuuri replies. It’s an understatement, given the news reports blaring on the nearby television about the Mayor of New York being at the top of the guest list for ‘fallen policeman Seung-gil Lee’s’ funeral. Viktor looks up and back at Phichit from the other side of the door, and sighs.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. Yuuri turns at that, putting on what he hopes is his least shaky smile.

“It’s not your fault,” he sighs. “You tried to get me there in time.”

“Yeah, but it still feels like it, a little.” Viktor runs a hand through his hair. “So much death lately, you know? In both of our worlds, too — but yours is definitely more upsetting.”

“You mentioned you were at a funeral in France,” Yuuri remarks, stepping over to peruse the milk bar menu. Admittedly, the chocolate malt cake shake sounds like it’d hit the spot right about now. “An old friend, right?”

“Pierre Bergé,” agrees Viktor, hanging his head. “A good man, a great friend.” At Yuuri’s questioning gaze, he adds, “he was Yves Saint Laurent’s partner in both the personal and business sense.”

“Oh,” says Yuuri, smiling a little. “I didn’t know Yves Saint Laurent preferred men.”

Viktor chuckles at that. “They were married, briefly, before Laurent died a couple years back. I still remember Pierre’s words at his memorial like they were said yesterday, how every one of his sentences spoke of their unique connection. I wonder if I’ll ever find a love as deep and as fulfilling as theirs.”

Yuuri steps closer without really intending to, his heart hammering in his chest. “I’m sure you’ll find someone,” he reasons.

“I don’t know.” Viktor laughs a little harshly. “It’s been years since I last felt anything for anyone. All I’ve known is the fashion world, where the only genuine display of love I’ve ever seen in my life faded away completely a couple days ago.”

For a brief, terrifying moment, Yuuri wants to be the one. Wants to be the answer to the question Viktor’s been posing, wants to answer the cry that he’s clearly put out. But then the spell is broken when the milk bar employee clears their throat, and Yuuri’s cheeks flush terribly as he places his order for three milkshakes and pays with the twenty clutched in his clammy fist.

“What brings you here tonight, though?” Viktor asks after a moment. He’s picked up a small box of cake truffles and a milkshake, but he clearly doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere. Outside the window, Phichit’s chatted up a couple people trying to get into the milk bar, distracting them with Makkachin as well. Yuuri has to laugh — leave it to Phichit to be able to hold up a crowd with the force of his sunny personality alone. He’d rather missed that side of him in the past couple of days.

“Phichit claims to have missed these shakes for five years,” he replies.

“They are pretty good,” Viktor concedes, with a pointed slurp. Yuuri feels his cheeks heating up once more. “But I also love their cake truffles — here, try one.”

He sets down his shake, opens up the box, and takes out one of the little cake balls, presenting it to Yuuri’s lips. Yuuri takes a small bite, his eyes fixed on Viktor’s the entire time. As his lips close over the truffle, Viktor’s eyes visibly darken.

Yuuri feels a shiver run down his spine at that, even as the sweetness of the cake hits his tongue. He takes the rest of the truffle from Viktor, eating it with one hand out to catch the crumbs. “Wow,” he says as soon as his mouth is clear. “That’s amazing.”

“I’ve got all the flavours in here,” says Viktor. “It’ll last me a while, though I’ll have to work it off somehow.” And he winks, making Yuuri’s stomach quiver with warmth.

“Order for Yuuri,” the milk bar employee says suddenly, their voice undeniably exasperated, and Yuuri quickly grabs the holder with the milkshakes with an apologetic bob of his head.

Viktor follows him out, and Phichit immediately descends upon his own milkshake, waving the other customers in with a cheery apology. Viktor unties his poodle from the nearby pole, smiling as he starts to step towards uptown.

“My flat’s in that direction,” he explains, as the box dangles from his elbow and Makkachin noses curiously up at it. “It was lovely to run into you again; what a small world we live in, huh?”

“Definitely,” says Phichit. “You have a nice night, Viktor.”

“My condolences about your colleague,” adds Viktor, with a touch of sadness to his brow. “I bet he was an amazing detective.”

“One of the best in the NYPD,” replies Phichit. “His funeral’s in two weeks; would you —”

“I’ll be watching it on the news,” says Viktor, with a hand over his heart. “I don’t think it’s my place to go, and I’m all funeraled out for the month, anyway. But I could send along condolence flowers, if you’ll give me an address?”

Phichit does, while Yuuri just stands there holding the milkshakes like some clueless intern, his stomach churning at the memory of the white flowers in the morgue. Viktor thanks Phichit for the information, and turns towards Yuuri with his arms outstretched.

“Call me, if you ever need to talk,” he says, and Yuuri nods, pressing himself into Viktor’s warm embrace with a sigh of relief. Viktor’s cologne wraps around him, sweet and floral, and Yuuri hates that his stomach turns at it in remembrance of the body yet again.

He’s dimly aware of Viktor’s lips on his cheek, a quick brush before the model steps back and smiles. Then he’s vanishing into the crowd heading uptown, Makkachin bounding forward along the sidewalk with him.

Yuuri touches his cheek, smiling, until Phichit drags him back to reality and their car.  

* * *

_September 29th, 2017  
Woodside Community Church, New York City_

“ _Central to Officer 9183. Central to Officer 9183. Detective Seung-gil Lee, please respond. Central to Officer 9183. Officer 9183, no response. Officer 9183, Seung-gil Lee, is end of watch. He has gone home for the final time. He was an admirable, hardworking officer who closed several high-profile cases during his service. He is gone, but far from forgotten._ ”

Yuuri opens his eyes as the Final Call ends, followed by the sound of police helicopters flying over the little Baptist church in Queens that Seung-gil had apparently attended as a kid. The sound of mourning buzzes low in the background; barely an eye is dry in the assembled crowd of police and civilians.

He stands to attention as the casket, draped in the flag of the NYPD, is borne out of the church. Phichit is one of the pallbearers; he looks strangely small and overwhelmed amid the stoic and burly NYPD officers accompanying him.

The bagpipes strike up a somber tune as the casket vanishes past the church doors, preceding Seung-gil’s family. Yuuri and Christophe follow along with the rest of the 24th Precinct; once they are out of the church, the afternoon sun glares brightly into his eyes.

The street outside the church is lined with officers at attention, saluting the casket as it is loaded into the hearse. There are civilians, too, their hands placed over their hearts in a show of respect. Slowly, numbly, Yuuri clambers into one of the cars alongside Christophe, part of the procession out to Cypress Hills Cemetery.

The ride is slow and agonising. The police have cleared the streets for the procession, but the hearse still moves at a crawl through the throngs of onlookers as it heads towards the cemetery. Thousands of people have gathered; Yuuri somehow feels all of their eyes are drawn onto him, though he knows it’s not possible given the tinted windows in the car.

“Think Phi will be all right?” Christophe asks quietly.

Yuuri shrugs, and they subside back into the grave silence that has descended upon everyone else in the car.

Seung-gil Lee is laid to rest in a quiet spot under a tree in Cypress Hills. Yuuri can’t look at the flowers assembled at the graveside, especially not the white chrysanthemums clutched in the hands of Seung-gil’s family. There had been more at the church earlier, and he could barely stand to place one of his own next to Seung-gil’s photograph. All that the action had brought to mind were the flowers arranged in the chest of Mr Shieh instead.

They do the Final Call one last time, before the family slowly bows to their son’s casket, and the officers of the 24th Precinct send him off with a 21 bell salute. Captain Cialdini folds the flag that had been draped across the casket, solemnly presenting it to Seung-gil’s mother.

And as the casket is slowly lowered into the grave, Hoppang begins to whine, her own salute alongside the bugler playing “Taps”. She strains at her leash, trying to get to the graveside where her master lies, but Phichit pulls her back, tear tracks shining on his face.

Yuuri himself cannot find the tears inside him; it is as if they have frozen before they were even shed.

* * *

_September 29th, 2017  
24th Precinct Office, New York City_

After the funeral and the reception, the procession back to the 24th Precinct is as silent as the grave.

Phichit makes a beeline straight to the evidence board next to Seung-gil and Leo’s desk. It’s a facsimile of the one at the FBI field office, bedecked in the pictures of the victims both in life and death. Seung-gil’s own inclusion on the board is an unsettling recent addition. Despite them being normal, the eyes in his picture still unsettle Yuuri.

“There’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since the sixth victim,” Phichit says, taking down each of the autopsy pictures and lining them up on Seung-gil’s empty desk. “You said that the missing parts from each of these victims were trophies.”

“Yeah?” asks Yuuri, raising an eyebrow. Next to him, Christophe makes a contemplative noise.

“Didn’t we also entertain the idea that he was punishing them for something?” he asks.

“I couldn’t understand why he’d remove body parts as punishment,” says Phichit, “or why he’d fixate on a different one each time. But then Seung-gil said that he’d been ‘chosen’ to ‘become Yuuri’.”

Christophe rummages in his pockets and resurfaces with his notes from the interview. “I think he said they called him ‘defective’,” he reports, and Phichit snaps his fingers.

“They called him that, and then they left the contacts in his eyes. Yun Xiao was missing his entire face. We know his face was bruised prior to the unsub cutting it off. So his face was off.”

Yuuri, unwittingly, reaches up and touches his own face.

“Yoon-min Kang was a baritone, according to Ms Klein. Yuuri, what kind of voice would you say you have?”

“He’s a tenor,” Christophe cuts in immediately. “I was in a capella; I would know.”

Yuuri swallows, any response he might have had getting tangled around his own vocal chords.

“Hyun-min Han’s lips were cut off. I’ll bet you anything the unsub was comparing his lips to yours.”

There’s a burst of pain and copper in his mouth, as Yuuri realises that he’d bitten his lips so hard he’d drawn blood.

“Eric Trentwood?” he asks, his voice hoarse with dread.

“Procrustean,” Christophe says immediately.

“Gesundheit,” replies Phichit.

“No, I mean it, Procrustean,” Christophe insists. At their confusion, he explains, “Procrustes was the innkeeper in the myth of Theseus.”

“What, the minotaur guy?” asks Phichit. “I don’t remember an innkeeper in that story.”

Christophe rolls his eyes. “It was _before_ he killed the minotaur,” he replies.

“Ah. Well. No one reads the prequels; just look at _Star Wars_.” Phichit laughs at his own joke, and for a moment Yuuri can pretend everything is as it was before Seung-gil died. “So, what does this innkeeper have to do with our unsub?”

Christophe huffs. “Procrustes ran a strange inn with only a bed six feet long, made of iron,” he begins. “The problem is, he wanted all of his guests to fit the bed perfectly. So people who were too short were stretched to death between the bedposts, and people who were too tall had their feet cut off. In some versions he also lops off the head.”

“You’d think Ye Olde Trip Advisor would warn you away from that inn after a couple of people go missing after staying there,” Phichit remarks. “But yeah, I’ll bet you anything Eric Trentwood was too tall.”

Yuuri’s heart sinks to somewhere near his feet. He gropes around, trying to find something to sit on before his knees give out. Christophe quickly pulls up a chair, and Yuuri lowers himself with trembling legs.

“What — What about Richard Chen?” he asks. “Only his head and arms were found on the mannequin. And Cao Bin? He was found whole.”

Phichit taps his lips. “Maybe there was something wrong about Richard Chen’s entire body, to the point that the unsub only left the head and arms. And as for Cao Bin, well — you hadn’t shown up in the news until after he was placed, so he was probably the lure.”

“The lure,” echoes Yuuri.

“Yeah. With each body there’s more news footage of you, more material for the unsub to make comparisons with. Chris is right, Yuuri — this is Procrustean. You’re the unsub’s iron bed.”

Ever since Seung-gil died, there had been a scream perched under Yuuri’s chin that he hadn’t let out, for fear that if he did, he would never stop screaming. But now, as he looks at every photo and every mutilation, he hears a strange, wounded keening echoing all around the room.

It isn’t until Phichit, Christophe, and several officers start appearing in his rapidly-blurring vision, their faces a uniform haze of alarm, that he realises that it’s coming from his own throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Graphic depictions of New York's Criminal Justice system, (extra) eye horror, fingernail horror, funerals, sadder Phichit, the saddest Hoppang
> 
> Lily: We looked up Pierre Bergé because we were using famous fashion designers for the unsub's aliases (ex. Chris Bailey) but then quickly realised that Pierre Bergé did not deserve such a disservice to his name.  
> Wrath: I had a feeling. I had many feelings. I had so many feelings that I threw them at Lily and now we're seriously planning a fashion designer AU for our next collab.  
> Lily: Wrath also had feelings about the end of watch stuff we looked up for this chapter. He didn't mind killing Seung-gil (weird, I know) but he _did_ mind writing the funeral.  
>  Wrath: Murders are fun. Funerals are not.

**Author's Note:**

> “Sometimes people ask you a question with their eyes begging you to not tell them the truth.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, _The Bed of Procrustes_
> 
> This piece was written for the 2018 Big Bang on Ice, in collaboration with bracari and DistressedOrange. We’re so incredibly grateful to them and their excellent artworks, which are embedded in this fic. If you were unable to see them in the fic for whatever reason, please refer to these links: [bracari's corpse displays](http://bracari.tumblr.com/post/171112578265/illustrations-for-the-yuri-on-ice-big-bang-fic-by)
> 
> This piece is also intended to be part of a longer trilogy — stay tuned for Parts Two and Three! In the meantime, find us both on Tumblr: [Wrath](http://exile-wrath.tumblr.com/) and [Lily](http://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Also a big thank you to our beta who has chosen to remain anonymous for this, as well as all of the lads who helped us with details of New York, Washington D.C., Quantico, corpse displays, the IRS, and the FBI. We greatly appreciate your help!


End file.
